Destiny's Arrow
by DiableRouge
Summary: Legolas and Arwen were lovers in their youths. Now she will marry a King of Men. What will happen when love is denied? Will the secrets of their tangled fates tear them apart? Some chapters will be linked as some people may find their content offensive.
1. At The Gates

DISCLAIMER:  These characters are not mine, I'm sad to say.  So I can take no credit for their wonderfulness.  This is a love story 

between the lines and in the margins.  So I can't take credit for all the plot elements either.  You get the idea.  It's not like people are throwing money at me…although that would be nice…so yadda yadda yadda, don't sue me, k?

PREFACE:  Leave me a review.  Lemme know what you think.  This fic (though it has been posted and reposted) is my first.  I like 

constructive criticism.  Basically, I don't care what you have to say as long as you say something.

Trine

(At the Gates)

It seemed unfair to Legolas that Luthien's likeness, so beautiful a creature as Arwen, should bind herself irrevocably to a man.  Truly, in every sense, he was a king among men, but a man nonetheless.  Legolas knew that she would not be grieved in the West.  He knew that few would mark her passing, but he knew, also, that he would be one who did.  He would raise his fair voice in lament for her, but he wished it did not have to be so.  He also knew the effectiveness of wishing.  A torrent, a cataract of thought sluiced through his mind as he watched the graceful curve of her neck as she melted into Aragorn's arms at the gates of Minas Tirith.  Her throat flashed as she breathed him in.  Her skin needed no adornment to hold Legolas's interest.  He felt the heat of anger rising in him at the selfishness of her choice.  He let it smolder.  His anger was cooled by his joy in both their happiness.  But, like any other metal, in cooling, his anger was only tempered.  It was reheated and alloyed with jealousy by their lingering, hungry kiss.  He had often felt those lips on his skin in centuries past.  Legolas was again subdued when Aragorn turned his warm, brotherly gaze upon him.  This time though, his anger and jealousy were refined to a cold, fearsome and steely hate.  Despite the intensity of his thoughts and feelings, neither his face nor his bearing showed any sign.  His expression remained placid and cool.

            Yet Arwen felt what passed behind Legolas's eyes, though she did not see it.  She perceived simply a sorrowful and malignant presence whose depth and intensity shook her to the foundation of her soul.  Arwen knew everyone that surrounded her.  She knew Aragorn and Legolas best.  She could not fathom such violent emotion coming from either of her loves, and so, she attributed it to neither of them.  She thought to herself that it must be the shadow of Sauron's broken spirit still lingering about the place he had so hated.  Surely it would pass, she thought.  And pass it did.

            Legolas turned his magnificent head to survey the recovering fields of Pellinor, still stained with blood and littered with steel and leather.  His overcast gaze passed over the Mountains of Shadow, sinister and foreboding.  He liked the look of them just then.  He stood brooding at the clearing sky when a gentle hand came to rest on the leather brace covering his forearm.  Arwen's clear, pale eyes met his when he turned, and a sensation like lightning passed through him at the brightness of her gaze.

            "Is all well with you, Legolas?" she asked.  Her voice sounded, to Legolas, like the gentle warbling call of a mourning dove.  He watched the subtle movements of her mouth as she spoke.  He thought there must be nothing in all the world so lovely as that voice spilling from those lips.  Legolas stood, unable to speak for a moment.  Her closeness put him in mind of their times together in Lorien and before that, Mirkwood.  He looked into her eyes.  He remembered those clear gray eyes misted and unfocused, lost in sensation.

            "Yes," he answered finally, looking away.  He lowered his voice to a satin whisper, "I have missed you, Arwen.  My soul has been lonely and restless without you near me."  Legolas closed his eyes and hung his head, trying to banish a vision of the elf before him, a woman who did not belong to him, writhing beneath him.  In his mind, he could see her, eyes closed tightly, mouth open.  Her remembered quiet cry of surrender and release rang in his ears.  He stood paralyzed as his body remembered her smell, like rain and wild lavender underfoot.  His breath caught in his throat as he remembered the texture of her skin against his, velvet beneath his fingers and against his chest.  He could taste her sweat salted sweet skin.  She filled his senses now as she had done then, and he willed down the heat that grew in his loins threatening to betray his thoughts.

            "But I am near you now.  I am here," she moved to face him.  As she spoke, Arwen placed her hand over Legolas's heart as she had done so often at their partings and meetings.  He covered her delicate hand with his larger one, but he did not look at her.  Instead, he watched Aragorn's receding back as he walked, talking with Gandalf.  Legolas met her eyes this time as he spoke.

            "But you are not," he said, ice in his voice.  She turned her long neck and sighed when her eyes fell upon Aragorn.  "He smiles at me like a friend and brother while he takes from me with both arms the only thing I have held dear in all my long life."  With those words, for a moment, Legolas's hate was laid bare.  It sliced, like a blade, through his pretense, and Arwen recoiled from him as though she had been cut by it.  She drew close to him once more.  She looked deeply into his eyes, searching for a trace of what she had felt, hoping not to find it.  

            "I belong to him no more than I have ever belonged to you," she whispered.  And with that, she turned from him.  She went, not to Aragorn, but to her chambers within the city.  Legolas watched her go.  Arwen moved with immense grace, and he was mesmerized by her movement.  She turned once more to look at him with such exquisite sadness in her face, mirrored in his own expression, that both thought their hearts would break.  Arwen then met Aragorn's eyes as she stood in the doorway.  She smiled at him with lingering melancholy.  He bowed his head to her, touching his forehead, his heart, and finally, finding her gaze again, held his hand out to her, presenting a phantom heart and a real love.  Her sadness, he thought, lent her even greater elegance and beauty.  Aragorn wondered what saddened her.  He feared that now she was with him in Minas Tirith she had, at last, begun to regret her decision to remain with him in mortality.  It would surely destroy him if she had given up eternity for nothing more than a stone around her neck.  But he loved her so entirely that, had she not remained with him, he would have risked the fate of Numenor to follow her into the West.  Surely a love so complete could not be weight, but wings.  And truly, Aragorn's love for her, though it soared to the heavens, was blind.  He did not feel Legolas's searing eyes upon him.  He was blind to the malice and jealousy that tinged his friend's ash colored eyes like a young, hot, hungry flame.

            At last, Arwen turned away and disappeared through the shaded doorway.  The spell, the trine was broken by her departure.  The seething anger that had clutched Legolas's heart began to ebb.  But an idea, a cruel thought lodged like a splinter in his mind.

            Aragorn touched Gandalf's shoulder when they had finished speaking.  Gandalf looked coolly, perhaps reproachfully, at Legolas as he too turned and disappeared into the city.  Aragorn turned his weathered smiling face upon Legolas as he approached.  As he walked, the warm westerly breeze caught Aragorn's dark hair, exposing the barest hint of silver.  It was only slightly more pronounced in his beard.  Today, Aragorn looked young.  He was a majestic and powerful presence.  Today, he breathed kingliness that surrounded him almost tangibly.

            Legolas had seen a better than a hundred kings and stewards pass.  His arrogance assured him that Aragorn was no different from the others, but his intuition whispered warningly otherwise.  He ignored it.  Legolas centered himself.  He stood tall and proud in the morning light.  His black hair showed a blue cast in the pale soft light of the rising sun.  He watched haughtily as Aragorn approached, not helping to close the distance.  As Aragorn drew nearer, he opened his arms to Legolas, who accepted the embrace.  Even as he did so, Legolas considered the speed and grace of motion that would be required to unsheathe the dagger from Aragorn's belt, pull him to his chest, and drive the blade between his ribs.  Legolas smiled vaguely at the thought, but dismissed it as he wrapped his sinuous arms around Aragorn's barrel chest and over his thickly muscled shoulder.  Legolas broke the embrace as soon as cordiality would allow.  He did not wish to seem as unfriendly toward Aragorn as he felt.  Aragorn studied the elf for a few moments before speaking.  When at last he found his voice it was gravely and weathered as his face.  It had, to a lesser degree, the rich undulating quality of Saruman's.

            "Perhaps it is the morning light, Legolas, but you are the likeness of death.  Are you well?"  Aragorn gazed into the fathomless eyes that watched him steadily.  But though his gaze was steady, Legolas fought a tumultuous battle within himself.  He felt as though he were slipping, sinking into a cold dark pool.  He loved Aragorn as a brother, but a brother now in competition with him for Arwen's love.  Though Legolas did not like to see the bitterness he felt at losing a competition, any competition, and this one more than any other, the bitterness remained.  He sensed a spring of it welling up into the pool that he was beginning to drown in.  The cruel thought-_Does he know? Should he know?_-bolted through his mind again.  He struggled to the surface and answered numbly.

            "I am well in body, but my soul is restless as the wind," was his only reply.

            "Is it the sea?  That was the Lady Galadriel's word and warning.  And it was following me that you first heard the waves.  If that is the cause of your pallor, I am sorry," Aragorn spoke, extending a leathern hand and planting it on Legolas's shoulder.

            "The sea calls as it never has before, but it does not demand," Legolas answered slowly.

            "What then, makes Legolas's fair face sad and pale and his voice weary?"

            "The coming of your Lady has put me in mind of home and times passed, and soon, I must find my home by one path or another," Legolas answered as he looked once more over the ruined field.  Aragorn smiled warmly again as he spoke.

            "Yes.  Yes, I know your mind, Legolas.  You are as I have been these many long wandering years.  Never belonging anywhere.  Restless, as you say, as the wind," Aragorn gave a long sigh, then continued, "Though I wish you would remain in my company, I will not ask you to ignore the voice that draws you.  When will you return to Thranduil's hall?"

            "I will not," spoke the elf softly.

            "Where then will you go?" asked Aragorn, puzzled.

            "I once belonged in Mirkwood, and once I belonged in Lorien.  Now I cannot say where I will find my home for I do not yet know where she will at last come to rest."  Legolas fell silent.  Aragorn searched his face for a hint of who she was.  He knew of none upon whom Legolas had bestowed his affections.  But he suspected that if his amorous passions ran as deep as his fighting spirit, that Legolas would make a woman a fine lover indeed.  And to call a woman home suggested to Aragorn that perhaps more than affection had been shared.  A storm of thought and questions raged in Aragorn's mind as he watched his friend.  Legolas stood still as a winter night, sadly watching the mounting sun.  Sadness lent Legolas the same poignant grace it had Arwen in Aragorn's sight.  Their resemblance that morning spurred the idea that perhaps she knew what troubled their friend.

            Aragorn did not wish to anger the elf, whose temper he knew to be fierce, with clumsy prying questions.  Besides, he knew, also, that Legolas would easily evade any such questioning if he wished, and his inattentiveness told Aragorn that he did.  So he left Legolas to his sunrise.

            "Be at peace, Legolas.  We shall speak at a fairer hour."  Legolas turned to smile weakly in reply.  Aragorn let his hand fall from the elf's shoulder and turned into the city.  Once he lost sight of Legolas, he made for Arwen's chambers to ask her the cause of his friend's despondency and consult her advice on how best to remedy it.

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AN: Thanks to all my lovely friends:  Rose Red, Rosiekinns, Vanessa, Masked Logician (humps leg), Katie…I'm sorry I've been so awful and not written, but I will finish it, I swear!               ~DR


	2. Into The City

Destiny's Arrow

(Into the City)

Aragorn walked alone through the streets in the morning mist.  He inhaled the cool air as though it were the first breath of life.  He rejoiced in the magnificence of his city.  As he walked, he felt the presence of another even before he felt the hand on his shoulder.  He stopped, and the loud snap of a wooden staff contacting flagstone told Aragorn it was Gandalf who followed him.

            "Why do you creep up behind me like a great spider after prey, Gandalf?" Aragorn turned, half laughing, to face the wizard.  Gandalf observed him stonily.  Aragorn abruptly stopped laughing as though he had been struck by the sternness of the wizard's expression.

            "I must speak with you this instant," Gandalf said evenly, guiding Aragorn down a deserted and narrow side street.

            "What of?  What has happened?" demanded Aragorn, the warrior displacing the king for the moment.

            "All is well for now.  You may put up your sword."  Aragorn's instinct had brought his hand, already, to Andruil's hilt without his realizing it.  At Gandalf's words, he released it.

            "What then is so urgent that you would halt me so as I am on my way to my Lady's chambers to speak with her?" Aragorn asked.  The look of suspicion that appeared on Gandalf's face at his reply stirred Aragorn's curiosity like an untimely woken serpent.

            "It is of your Lady that I would speak," Gandalf answered.  He paused, awaiting the king's answer.

            "Speak then, but speak well of her, for I love her well and will hear no word against her," Aragorn said sharply.  He was annoyed with the wizard for a reason he did not know and it troubled him.  Gandalf stood patiently.  "I am sorry, Gandalf.  I should not have spoken angrily when I am not angry at all.  I fear only that you will tell me something I will not wish to hear."  Gandalf continued to survey him.  "Speak," said Aragorn said at last.

            "Have you lain with Arwen, Aragorn?" Gandalf asked without pretense or embarrassment.  Aragorn was taken aback at the unabashed boldness of the question.  Had any other man asked such a question he would likely have found a quick dagger at his throat.  Gandalf simply watched patiently as Aragorn considered what he had been asked.  Aragorn's gaze remained sharp when he answered presently.

            "I have not," he answered slowly.

            "Why not?" Gandalf asked again without even a trace of delicacy.

            "Because I love her.  It is the tradition of Gondor that the king lie in his wedding bed only once the queen is queen in the eyes of all," Aragorn replied indignantly.

            "You, Aragorn, have never been one to stand on ceremony," said Gandalf, "Now tell me truly.  Have you been to her bed?"

            "I have not.  And if you were any other man, there would be a knife in your throat to the hilt for your rude questions and mistrust of a trusted friend," Aragorn growled.  Gandalf smiled darkly.

            "Then I will take you at your word.  But as I once said to another friend, be angry if you will, but soon it will be my turn to get angry, and if you threaten me again, I shall.  I ask for your own good, and knowledge." Gandalf answered calmly.  Aragorn regarded him incredulously.

            "I have no wish to anger you, Gandalf, but I would plainly know how you come to ask such questions and then doubt me when I answer you truly," said Aragorn, his tone losing its heat.  The wizard searched Aragorn's face one last time as though to be sure he spoke true before answering.  Finally, he spoke.

            "I ask only because two nights past, an elvish song found its way through my window as I sat in meditation.  It was a song I had never heard before.  A song of Beren and Luthien's love.  But then, it became more plaintive.  The voice, to whom it belonged I cannot say, requested, then implored to be let in.  It spoke of a love that would not be broken or denied by the distance across the sea and heavens to the West, and asked for admittance once more.  It was then that I thought it must not have been my window for which the song was intended," Gandalf said with a dry smile, "But from those words I could only assume that it was your voice I heard, singing to your elvin Lady at her window," Gandalf paused to watch a rapidly gathering storm shade Aragorn's brow.

            "Is there anything more?" Aragorn asked stiltedly.

            "There is," replied Gandalf without inflection.  "Are you sure that you wish to hear it?" he asked raising a heavy brow.

            "Continue," was the only answer.

            "I rose at the sound of a heavy door latch coming open," Gandalf continued tonelessly.  At these words Aragorn blanched.  "I went to the window for a better view of the courtyard, but I had only a glimpse of a dark haired figure passing through the doorway before it was shut behind him," said Gandalf.  He watched Aragorn unblinkingly for a moment.  "Was it you I saw?" he asked at last.

            "It was NOT…," Aragorn began, his voice rising to a thunderous volume.

            "Softly!" barked the wizard, interrupting and quieting the king.

            "It was not I who you saw, no," Aragorn breathed dangerously.

            "Truly, now I think it was not," said Gandalf, nodding with knitted brow.  "Though, now, do you see how I came to wonder?" he asked.  "And to doubt?" he added pointedly.

"Yes," said Aragorn, closing his eyes resignedly.  He sighed heavily, "Yes.  And thank you."  Aragorn looked suddenly old and haggard and weary.  He caught himself against the wall behind him and sank to the ground.  He sat for a long while with his elbows propped against his knees and his head in his hands.  After long minutes of heavy and unbroken silence, Gandalf knelt by Aragorn.  He placed a gnarled hand on the king's broad back.  Aragorn's lungs filled with a shudder that felt to the wizard like a tearless sob.

"These tidings are not so foul that you should fall into despair, Aragorn," Gandalf said gently, stroking Aragorn's dark glossy head in a comforting, fatherly fashion.

"I am not in despair," said Aragorn with a trace of sullenness in his voice.  "I am thinking."

"And what do you think?" the wizard asked.                             

"I think that I must speak with Arwen now more urgently than before," said Aragorn, rising.  Once he stood to his full height he caught the wizard again with a sharp eye.  "Unless there is more that I need know before I ascend that long stair."  Gandalf regarded him sternly as he spoke.

"Only remember that she loves you more than eternity.  And know that she has many secrets and bears them as a great burden."

"Speak.  What must I know?" asked the king wearily.

"I said that Arwen has many secrets.  They are hers to share or keep as she will, not mine.  And I warn you, you will drive her away if you do not let her keep the ones she will," said Gandalf, his eyes never losing Aragorn's.  "Mark me, Aragorn and remember what I have said," Gandalf said grimly.

"I will," answered the king with equal gravity.  The pale light was not kind to his troubled features as he stepped into the waking street.

AN: Thanks for the reviews.  Shall we strike a bargain since we all know how I love reviews (read: REVIEW SLUT!)?  I'll update every week/5 reviews (since it's a repost).  Sound good?  Good!  Oh!  And as I said in the review I left on the page, if you want current updates, send me your e-mail address and I'll put you on my mailing list and you'll get it just as soon as I finish…not saying when that'll be, but oh well.  I love you all and thank you for your support.               ~DR


	3. Inside Light and Shadow

Trine

(Inside Light and Shadow)

Aragorn strode on long legs into the open courtyard.  Around him, four towers marked the cardinal directions.  The white tree stood only waist high to the tall man whose hand had gladly rooted it in its place of honor at the heart of the city.  He stood thinking a while as he regarded the graceful sapling's limbs.  The budding leaves were rich waxy green, but underneath they showed soft silver-grey.  Sadness tried to creep into him at the thought that this ancestral tree would be Arwen's sole reminder of her past and people.  It was alone as she.

Aragorn's eyes crept up the white stone, gold in the morning sun, to her high window on the southern tower.  She stood tall on the balcony, watching the sunrise.  Her milky skin was warmly golden as the dawn itself.  Aragorn stood watching her.  She wore a light and flowing gown of a material woven by her grandmother in Lorien.  It was the same color as the leaves of the white tree.  It struck him that where the fabric rippled in the wind and caught the light just so, that it, also, was the same silver-grey as the bottoms of those leaves.  As he watched, the breeze moved Arwen's dress about her, silhouetting the full curves and long lines of her lithe body in silver.  Something moved in him then as it had when he first saw her standing so in the dawn among the elanor of Cerin Amroth.  And as she had at their first meeting, Arwen turned her striking gaze on him as though she knew how long he had stared, as though she had been expecting and waiting for him.  And then she smiled.  Her smile warmed him so completely that, though he still stood in the shadow of the north tower, he felt that he too was standing on the balcony with the gentle sunlight on his face.  What doubt and anger there was growing in Aragorn's mind dissolved in the fluid, perfect moment that passed between them then.  He trusted her without qualm or condition.  Whoever had visited her so late, however unseemly it appeared, he knew that she would not betray him.  In that moment he wanted, more than anything else, to be near her, simply to touch her, to caress her.  It struck him then, how rough his hands were and how road worn and filthy he was.

Pulling his eyes away from hers, he made his way to his own apartments in the western tower which pointed the way to Numenor.  Aragorn wished to be clean before going to his love.  He crossed the court, passing the pair of armed guards that stood watch at the heavy oaken door that opened onto a long stairway leading to the king's private chambers.  Upon entering his bedroom, the king began to doff his clothing.  Andruil, he placed on its wall mounting.  As he continued to undress, his mind raced.  He thought of how forlorn Legolas had been.  Gandalf's words and warning echoed through is tired brain.  Then, he remembered Arwen, standing glorious on her balcony.  When he closed his eyes, she was there, smiling down at him from her perch.  He was glad to be home.

Home.  Aragorn's eyes flew open as he ceased disrobing abruptly.  He stood, seminude, clothes scattered about his feet.  Home, he thought again.  Home--and an elvish song--an elvish love song whose singer had been admitted by the back door of the South tower.  When he, again, closed his eyes he saw both Arwen and Legolas.  Neither smiled.  In fact, they wore the same doleful expression.  Surely Legolas had not been the dark haired figure Gandalf had seen.  Legolas had known of Aragorn's troth to Arwen from its birth.  His thoughts turned once more to that silver misted morning in Lothlorien.  The morning star had just peeked above the mallorn canopy that the sun had painted gold.  And beneath the surreally beautiful halo of a nascent daylight had stood the evening star, his beloved Undomiel.  She was so lovely, so ethereal that she might as easily have been a dream as a trick of the light.  Aragorn had wished for nothing more than to spend the rest of his life in the presence of this fantastic creature who he had been sure would vanish if he looked away.

He wandered a while through that pleasant reminiscence before finding the way back to the wider path that his thought had taken.  He had found Arwen in Lorien, but he had sought Legolas there.  Doubtless, some other matter had brought Legolas to the Golden Wood.  Surely he had not gone so far simply because he had wanted to be near her.  But then a small and ugly voice crept out of a dark, shadowed, cobwebbed corner of Aragorn's mind.  It reminded him that he himself would cross any distance, face any peril just to be by Arwen's side.  He tried to wrap his unwilling mind around the connection that presented itself.  A pleasanter voice told him that he looked too hard and too long for something that wasn't there.  After all, it meant nothing that Legolas had been in Lorien at the same time as Arwen.  Arwen had lived there for a great many years with her grandmother, Galadriel.  Certainly Legolas had been there on some embassy from his father, Aragorn reassured himself.  _Ah, but an elvish love song, the ugly voice hissed.  But there were many elves in the city, friends and relations, come to attend the approaching wedding.  A serenade such as Gandalf had heard could have been sung by any number of Arwen's multitudinous well wishers.  __But why, then, was the singer so anxious to come inside? needled the voice again.  _Why?_ it demanded.  Aragorn could posit no counter, and the pleasanter voice remained silent.  Shaking his head, the king removed his final articles of clothing.  He continued to mull over the uncertainty that plagued his mind.  Was the unbreakable love of the song the love he shared with Arwen, for he truly loved her and had no doubt that she loved him, or was it a love she shared with another that he had known nothing of until then?  He was unsure as he sank into his steaming bath, immersing his weary body, and it vexed him.  Soon, though, the muscles that had screamed at him through his long night's journey back to the city began to be soothed and quieted.  His flurried thoughts stilled and consciousness escaped him as he slipped into a light but peaceful and dreamless sleep…_

Arwen watched Aragorn, the man she loved, walk through the shadows to his door and disappear into the West tower.  As the door swung shut behind him she felt her heart snag on something cold and contemptible.  The something, she feared, was resentment.  But then, she looked out from her high vantage point toward the horizon.  The sun, which had stained the sky about it the soft shades of morning, had fully crested the mountains in the distance.  She was beginning a new life with this dawn, a life with the man she loved, with Aragorn.  As Arwen stood pensive on her balcony, a new pair of eyes moved hungrily over her.  She immediately felt Legolas's gaze upon her and returned it.  Though Legolas devoured the sight of her, he yearned to experience her with more of his keen elvish senses.  He longed for her, and she for him.  Looking down on him, hidden in the deep shadow of the North tower, out of sight of the guards at Aragorn's door, she perceived the power within him that radiated from his body like a light, a beacon beckoning her as it had when first she had encountered him so many centuries ago.  The same radiance shone from her, in Legolas's sight, drawing him to her as irresistibly as she was attracted to him.  Arwen leaned over the rail, extending her hand, inviting him to come to her.  His grey eyes gleamed and a small triumphant smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.  Then, swiftly and silently, Legolas slipped through the dying shadows of the courtyard.  The guards did not see him as he opened the wide door just enough to admit his lithe form and closed it behind him.

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	4. The Hunt

Trine

(The Hunt)

Arwen stood on her balcony, holding her breath, until the door snapped shut behind Legolas.  She lingered a moment longer watching the sunrise while the wind ran its playful fingers through her long ebony hair.  Turning from the fresh morning air and light, she entered her spacious bedroom.  Soft morning light spilled through the archway that led to the balcony and two tall, well placed windows, reflected off the smooth worn stone floor and illuminated the chamber with the same pleasant glow of all sunlit places.  She cast a long shadow across the stone as she entered the room.  Her trousseau hung on a form in a far corner.  The gown had been her mother's, and her grandmother's before.  _Why? she asked herself angrily, _Why did I call him to me?__

White nuptial regalia scolded her from its corner.  The pale green stone, the mate to the token that had changed Aragorn to Elessar, glinted coldly as she sank into a chair on the hearth.  Arwen closed her eyes.  The heat of the continually crackling fire washed over her, reminding her of a bright, warm day more than a millennium past…

Arwen had left her horse to fill her water skin in a clear running stream.  Though she'd seen the doe grazing in a clearing downstream, it was the hunter's midnight colored hair in contrast to the fair, subtly olive colored flesh of his back that alerted her to his presence.  Curious, she crept stealthily to the concealment of a large oak, only a little farther from her prey than he was from his.

The early Midsummer afternoon sun was hot as it filtered down through the dense canopy and tangled branches of beech and ash trees, dappling the bare shoulders and back of the elf who Arwen watched.  He wore only a pair of supple doe skin leggings and light shoes.  Across his back was strapped a quiver of arrows and a double scabbard tailored to a fine pair of long, horn handled daggers.  In his hand was a bow.  A shock of straight, thick, black hair lay in a finely woven herringbone braid in the shallow furrow of taut muscle between his shoulder blades.  He was crouched low to the ground a bare yard from his prey.

The doe was utterly unaware of her stalker.  The elvish huntsman remained so unnaturally still that he might have been hewn from stone.  Only the slow, even movement of his breathing told Arwen that he was, indeed, a living creature, and even that would have been undetectable to any but elvish eyes.  She watched, with amusement, the hunter who did not know that he himself was hunted.  

She kept her place for a long while, waiting to see how the hunt would end.  The longer she watched, the more dangerous, fierce, the more predatory he seemed to become, until, at last, the doe turned in her grazing toward him.  Suddenly, Arwen understood that this was the moment he'd been waiting for.  She watched, fascinated, as, in one graceful movement, he sprang from the thicket where he hid into the brightly sunlit clearing, all the sinewy muscles of his lower body rippling at once to launch him with almost impossible speed toward his target.  When he landed, he fell immediately to a crouch once more.  Before the doe had even a chance to realize her peril or flee, the elf had strung an arrow, aimed, and shot her through the throat.  The arrow's point protruded just at the base of her head, and she collapsed where she stood.

Arwen let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding.  She crept out of her hiding place.  She wanted to be closer to him, wanted to know his name.  Arwen walked to the hunter who was stooped over his kill, her footfalls making no sound on the carpet of leaves and moss.  The humidity of the air that promised evening rain also dampened any sound she might have made.  When she reached him, she, too, crouched behind and beside him, just out of his sight.  She watched as he carefully removed the arrow and set it on the ground at his feet.  She listened as he began to sing a hunter's prayer, a prayer of thanks to the animal for its life.  His voice was clear and soothing.  His voice filled her with a desire to reach out to him, to touch him, to feel his skin beneath her palm.

She had already begun to extend her hand when he finished his song and leaned smoothly forward, grasping both the deer's front and hind legs, and with one mighty heave, yoked it across his shoulders.  He picked up his bow and soiled arrow, then stood.  Arwen looked on wide eyed and horrified as turned toward her.  The elven huntsman gasped in alarm when he found her kneeling before him.  Quickly as he had moved for the kill, he dropped his prize and aimed a deadly shot at her heart.  Arwen did not flinch.

"Name," barked the hunter.  The voice that had been so gentle became commanding and harsh.  She remained silent for a long moment as though to inform him that she did not have to answer him at all.  Then, she rose to near equal height, matching his intense gaze.  His aim did not falter.  Finally, she spoke,

"I am Arwen Undomiel; daughter of Elrond Half-Elven, lord of Imladris."  As she regarded him, though her look remained neutral, she noted the dreadful beauty of his form and face.  He did likewise.  "Either shoot or introduce yourself," she said at last, using exasperation to mask the quickening she felt at his gaze.  These were clearly not the words he had expected, she thought as she watched him attempt to remember who he, in fact, was.

"Legolas Greenleaf; son of Thranduil, King of the Silvan Elves of the Greenwood," he replied, lowering his bow.  While Legolas preferred to think that he did this because she was no threat, he knew it was because he had been unable to resist her disarming eyes, and it disturbed him.  

The two elves stood looking at each other, they knew not how long.  Looking on the exquisite creature before him, Legolas began to feel a little foolish for his rather drastic reaction.  It was he who, at last, broke the silence.

"Well, my Lady Undomiel, I suppose I won't make myself out a fool by feigning awareness of your having been behind me," he smiled, barely resisting the mad urge to giggle, for he was genuinely relieved that she had not been some minion of the evil that had taken up residence in Dol Guldur.  The look, which she was sure mirrored her own, of sheer dumbfounded surprise that still played in his eyes, compounded by his slightly crooked smile, was so comical, that Arwen was completely unable to maintain a straight face.  She smiled broadly at him before they both collapsed in gales of relieved laughter.  Legolas was forced to steady himself with his hands on his knees, and Arwen found herself obliged to lean against the trunk of the large oak she'd been hiding behind to support her weight.

"I…," she gasped, winded by a continual fit of giggles, "I'm so…so sorry!  I didn't mean to…t'frighten you," she finally managed.  She, too, was relieved he hadn't let fly his arrow.  She knew that she was quick; quick enough to avoid an arrow, even at short range, but not point blank.  "I am sent to deliver a message to your father, Legolas Greenleaf; son of Thranduil, King of Silvan Elves of the Greenwood.  Shall I call my horse to carry back our supper or have you a steed close?" she smiled as they regained themselves.

"Yes, thank you.  I was not looking forward to carrying it home alone," he answered straightening to his full height.  "But I think I will follow you," he added, turning to follow her as she left the clearing, "Unless you decide to creep up on me again and try to scare me completely out of my wits a second time."

"I am sorry," she snorted a giggle, "but I couldn't help myself.  You were entrancing," she heard a distant voice she recognized as her own say.  Why had she said that, she wondered.  He was practically a perfect stranger.  Legolas chose, tactfully, to ignore her last sentence.  Leaving no pause, lest it become awkward, he said,

"No need for apology.  We are both in one piece.  But truly, I know few who can come closer than a league of me without my knowing it.  I am impressed by your stealth," he said sincerely.  He watched her intently for a moment before looking, once more, at the path ahead, "…and your beauty," he added softly.  Why had _he said __that, he wondered.  He decided he'd said it because it was true.  They walked in silence together.  _

The remainder of their journey to Thranduil's halls was uneventful.  They talked of the orcs that stirred in the Misty Mountains, the foul things that ventured from the south of Greenwood that made men call it Mirkwood, exchanged news of Rivendell and the Greenwood, and shared what tidings they had from Lothlorien in the south.  Legolas occasionally cast a surreptitious glance to memorize her face, one detail at a time.  Arwen felt him stray nearer her as they walked.

When the pair reached the heart of the Greenwood, they were met by a company of Legolas's people who took the doe ahead to be dressed and prepared for the evening feast.  They entered the subterranean palace where Legolas brought Arwen before his father.  She produced from an inner pocket of her grey traveling cloak, a message requesting a delegate of the Silvan folk to attend the coming council concerning the shadow spreading from the southern reaches of Thranduil's realm.  The lord of Mirkwood thanked and dismissed her and sent his son to show her to her room.  Thranduil observed, as they left, how they seemed to gravitate toward one another, steadily closing the gap between them as they disappeared through the wide stone arch of the Great Hall.

Once in the corridor, Legolas could contain himself no longer.  He took Arwen's hands, bringing her opposite him, her back to the wall only a little way behind her.  She would not look into his face, not wishing him to see the desire that flared in her at his touch.  Legolas brought her eyes to his with a gentle hand.  She backed away.  He followed.  Arwen stopped when her heel brushed the wall behind her.  She knew that if he should come nearer, if their lips should meet, there would be no resisting him, and she feared that helplessness.  As he gazed on her fair face, her grey eyes expressed her fear, pleading with him not to take that final step.  Legolas's eyes fell with something he had rarely felt before: shame.  Though he was prince, and not to be denied, and though he desired her greatly, he had no desire to press this agonizingly lovely creature passed her will.  With a sigh of disappointment, he respected her unsaid request, taking a step back and releasing her.

"I am sorry, my Lady Undomiel," he whispered, eyes still to the floor.  She was moved.  He was a prince.  She had expected him to demand his way, and she had not looked forward to refusing him because, in her heart, she didn't want to.  But he hadn't made her, and she was grateful.  A smile touched her lips as she watched him, head hung like a scolded child.

"My name is Arwen," she answered in a whisper that was little more than a breath.  It was she that took the final step.  Bringing his aristocratically handsome face to hers, she closed her eyes and brushed her full, soft lips against his.  Legolas was electrified by this merest of kisses.  He felt as though he had come alive for the first time in his life.  Even the thrill of the hunt never made is blood rush so.

He pulled her closer to him, pressing his powerfully built body against her.  The smooth curve of her waist and flair of her hips as she rocked toward him, allowing her self to be held, heated his desire.  He pressed his lips forcefully against hers in a passionate and demanding kiss.  To his surprise and delight, she kissed back with equal ferocity.

Legolas was unaccustomed to women this aggressive.  The sexual politics of his people gave him right to almost any woman he chose, and, while many of Legolas's past lovers had been glorious, and skilled, and more than happy to share his bed, none of them had, though he had delivered unfailingly, ever demanded much in return.  This one kiss told him that Arwen would be much different from anything he had ever experienced before.

His hands came to rest in the small of her back, and hers, on his shoulders.  Arwen parted her lips slightly, inviting him, enticing him to taste her mouth.  Their breath mingled as they held each other for a glorious moment that seemed to stretch on endlessly.  She smiled inwardly as she felt the heat of his desire grow to urgency, then to need against her hips.  Her stirring, though not so evident as his, blazed quickly to equal intensity, but she was unwilling to indulge her impulse to spirit him away to her room, and, once they reached it, take him straight to her bed.  Instead, she disentangled herself from him, then headed in the general direction she hoped her room lay.

Legolas trotted lightly after her, catching her arm and spinning her around to kiss her once more, beginning more gently this time.  He was instantly rewarded.  She positively fell into his arms when his lips met hers so tenderly.  But, again, she pushed him away.

"Show me to my room," she said breathlessly.  He looked at her, stunned.  Though her voice denied him, her lips begged to be claimed and conquered.  He was confused.  The way she stood was vulnerable and innocent, but her eyes were smoldering, lustful.  He was very confused.

"Come, then," he answered, leading her off down the corridor.  Once, she brushed her fingers over his palm.  He snatched his hand away and would not look at her.  Upon reaching her door, he was haltingly courteous.  "Here you are, my Lady Undomiel.  I hope everything is to your liking.  Someone will come for you when supper is ready," Legolas said.  He deliberately and pointedly looked anywhere but where she stood, and set not one foot over the threshold.

"Will you come for me?" she asked quietly.  Her long fingered hand darted out to his.  Before he could snatch it back again, Arwen had his hand in a surprisingly strong grip.  "Please?" she asked, finally having his attention.  Legolas did not answer for a time.  She drew close, searched his face, moving nearer still.  When her lips touched his, he did not respond.  Arwen backed away to look quizzically at him.  He continued to stare past her as though she were no more substantial than a breath of wind.  She placed a hand on his broad, still bare, chest, gave him a blistering kiss, and, with a slender finger of her free hand, began to caress the velvet curve of his ear from lobe to point.  Legolas was entirely unable to suppress the shudder of pleasure that swept him.  Arwen continued to rub the flexible cartilage between her thumb and forefinger, as she backed away enough to look him in the eyes.  "Please," she repeated.

"I will," he finally managed tremulously.

"Tonight, then," she said.  Even as she finished speaking, Legolas covered her mouth with his, swallowing any phrase that might have followed.  His hands wandered over her body as his tongue moved along the contour of her lower lip.  His long fingers knotted in her sable tresses, ran down the arch of her long neck, traced the slightly flushed ivory curves of her clavicles, slid along her sides to her slender waist, and followed the flair of her slim hips, finally coming to rest, once again, at the small of her back.

All too soon, he found himself releasing her warm, supple body.  She backed through her door and closed it slowly, shooting him a lascivious glace as the last sliver of light from inside the room was pinched from the hallway.  He stood staring focused on some far off point.

"Tonight," he murmured to the closed door, then turned toward his own apartments to dress for dinner.

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	5. Starry Night linked

Trine

Starry Night

            AUTHOR'S NOTE:  This chapter contains explicit sexual content.  There.  It's said.  If you don't like it, if you are even vaguely concerned that you might possibly find it offensive in some way, I urge you not to follow this link.  You have been warned.  If I hear even so much as a peep from anyone about it, I'm going to…well…I'm not sure precisely what I'd do.  Just don't be a jerk, huh?  Don't like it, don't read it.  It's that simple.  The next chapter will be up soon.  Okay.  All that said, here's the link.  If at first—adultfan . nexcess . net / aff / story . php ?no=5506&chapter=5 (take out all the spaces obviously…)-- you don't succeed, try, try--livejournal.com/users/~diablerouge--again …it's in that second one I promise.  You may have to look for it a little as it's about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way down the page, but it's there.

CHAPTER SUMMARY FOR ALL THOSE TOO DELICATE FOR SOME GOOD OLD FASHIONED SHAGGING:

            Legolas and Arwen do it…in a tree.  *end flashback*

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	6. Beneath the Surface

Trine

(Beneath the Surface)

Again, she feared what she felt in him, but neither her pride nor her intuition would allow her to simply dismiss him.  Somehow, she knew that that would be a grave mistake.

"Of course.  Come in," she said, trying to sound calmer than she felt.  Arwen opened the door and stood aside to admit him.  When she'd closed and bolted the door, she turned back into the room.  He gazed into the sunrise, his back to her.  "Was there something you wished to discuss, Legolas?" she inquired tonelessly.

"Yes," he answered, proud head and shoulders slumping a little as though he bore a great weight.  She waited, dreading the questions she knew would follow.  "You mean to marry with Aragorn three days hence.  Is it not so?" he asked.  She heard in his voice the fire that raged just beneath the thin veil of composure.

"It is," she answered simply.

"Do you love him?" Legolas asked, keeping his back to her to hide the angry tears he fought back.

"I do."

"And do you love me, Arwen?" he persisted.  The anger that had cloaked his pain melted away.  Either answer would sting, but he almost hoped that she would tell him that she did not love him.  His sorrowful heart wanted to hear that she'd never loved him.  There was a very pregnant pause before she sighed and answered.

"Yes.  I do."  Legolas turned on her.  Rekindled anger flashed in his eyes.  His eyes that had always been soulful became empty and expressionless.  If she would not release him, he would make her not love him.  He advanced.  Slowly, he strode toward her.  Fists clenched, he slammed his forearms against the door on either side of her.  He pinned her body with his own.  His crooked smile lost all its charm, seeming only sinister and cruel when it curled his lips in response to her flinch as she tried to squirm free.

"Be still," he hissed fiercely.  Arwen was shocked into obedience.  He had never spoken to her like that before.  Unquenchable heat flared in his loins at the contact.  It always had.  More than the steel in his voice, more than being immobilized, that heat and pressure on her lower abdomen frightened her.  He had never forced himself on her in more than a thousand years of love and sex and fights and she knew that he wouldn't then, but the possibility had never even occurred to her before.

"Let me go," she hissed back.

"I will once I have said my piece, but now you will listen to me," he growled through gritted teeth.  She glared at him.  "Tell me that you don't love me," he breathed dangerously, eyes narrowing.  Arwen looked at him as though he had struck her, and her face twitched once as though she would cry.

"Wha..? No, I won't.  I love…," she whimpered, looking imploringly at him.  Legolas did not wait for her to finish.

"TELL ME!" he bellowed.  She shied from his fury.  There was another prolonged pause.  She could not bring herself to do what he asked.  It broke her heart to love him and it broke her heart to renounce it, but she found herself forced to do both.  Her love for him overwhelmed her.  The emotion that held her prisoner, unable to speak, was so profound that it could not be contained.  It spilled from her soul in a single crystal tear that fell down her ivory cheek.  Her voice quavered when she answered.

"I can't," she said quietly, not meeting his gaze.  His fists opened and he let his hands slide down the door to rest on her shoulders.  He drew back a little.  "I can't," she murmured over and over, shaking her head, tears flowing freely.  That uncomfortable feeling of shame possessed him again.  He gathered her into his arms, and, together, they sank to the floor.  They sat clinging to one another for long moments.  Legolas held her.  He rocked her and stroked her hair as she wept softly onto his shoulder.  "I love you," she said in a broken whisper.  "I love you so much that my soul would shatter to deny it.  I cannot deny you, and yet…and yet I must.  After all is said, Legolas, I must," the words tumbled out, her levy of stoicism breeched.  He did not reply for a long time.  When at last he did, his words were simple.

"You will die for him."                                                                                                                          

"I will," she said as though she'd only just realized it herself.  "I have chosen Ilúvatar's Gift, and I send Frodo to the West in my stead," she said.  "But I would live for you," she finally met his eyes with those words.  Infinite sadness returned to haunt them both.  Legolas wiped at her tear streaked face.  She opened her mouth to speak again, but no words came.

"Sh," he whispered as he hugged her tightly to his chest once more.  Again, her closeness, her vulnerability awakened his desire.  Her eyes glistened with fresh tears as she turned her face to his.

"Please, no, Legolas…," she objected weakly.  He ignored her, crushing his lips against hers.  His demanding kiss was full of barely contained passion.  It was her own response to it, though, that frightened and angered her.  His touch electrified her.  She did not want him to stop.  "NO!" she yelled, rending herself from his embrace, determined not to succumb.  Staggering to her feet, her hand rested on the door handle when Legolas tried his last and most desperate tactic.

"What about our…," he trailed off.  Arwen knew what he had been about to say and the cold fury that contorted her features silenced him.  She swung the door open.  Her eyes were still fixed on him where he sat when he went pale.

"Your what?" Aragorn scowled.  Arwen whipped around, eyes wide on the man who occupied the doorway.  None of them moved for some time, though Aragorn's eyes searched from one shocked and guilty face to the other.  All his suspicions seemed confirmed.  Slowly, Arwen closed her eyes, sighed heavily, and prepared to face him…

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AN:  The next chapter will begin with a flashback (hence the ellipsis), so don't be confused when it doesn't continue directly from here.  You all probably know what's about to happen, but oh well.  Read it anyway! J            ~DR

AN2:  The next chapter is definitely going to be a while.  I have just gotten back a rather distressing paper from one of my classes and I need to cut back on my laziness somewhere.  It's looking more and more like it's going to be coming from here.  Sorry lovelies.  I'll do my best.  ~DR


	7. Partings

Destiny's Arrow

(Partings)

Legolas rolled over.  His arm fell on the warm spot where Arwen should have lain, but she was not there.  A wide shaft of pale light from the early morning sun streamed through the open window.  Exertions of the previous evening had left the elf sleeping with his eyes closed.  The amber dawn assaulted his eyes when he opened them, causing his pupils to constrict painfully.  Once his eyes adjusted, he began to look around and was momentarily disoriented.  Arwen was not in the bed, which suggested that he was at home, in Mirkwood.  The sunlight and cool morning breeze that raised goosebumps on his bare skin told him that he was elsewhere.  He wriggled from beneath the soft sheet and blankets.  He shivered a little in the crisp spring air.  When he stood, his view from the window was picturesque.  The Falls of Bruinen roared into the roiling pool at their foot.

Rivendell was beginning to wake.  Legolas could hear footsteps on the veranda several yards below the window.  He thought it would be wise to leave Arwen's apartments.  She was, after all, the only one who knew that he had not stayed in his own room.  To anyone else, it would have appeared that Legolas had slept there.  The few items he had brought were scattered about the room and the bedclothes were thoroughly rumpled and disarrayed.

As he pulled on his leggings groggily, he wondered where his bedfellow had disappeared to.  He quickly and deftly braided his long hair.  He did not wish to be caught wearing the same clothes he'd arrived in the day before; looking tired and disheveled but strangely happy, as though he'd recently dragged himself out of a heated bed.

The prince smiled to himself as he finished the plait, remembering how she had glowed in the sunset when he'd arrived to find her awaiting him on the stone footbridge.  Then, the sun had set and the real greeting had begun.  Arwen had been completely insatiable.  For the five centuries that they had been lovers, she had always been so after they'd been apart for a time.  Legolas slipped on his shoes and surveyed the room from the bed, looking for his shirt.  The latch disengaged as he stood to implement a more active search for his absent articles of clothing.  Slowly, the door swung open and Arwen tottered in looking pale and peaked.

"You look dreadful," he said, going to her.                                                              

"I'm sure I do," she answered, half laughing.

"Is everything alright?" he asked as he took her arm and escorted her to the bed.  Arwen sat with a long sigh.  She briefly considered telling him about every morning of the preceding week that she'd woken with the irresistible urge to vomit.  She decided against it.  She knew what it meant, and so would he.

"It will be," she answered.  Her lips were soft on his cheek.  Legolas wanted to make love again, his own appetite as keen as hers.  He laid back and pulled her with him.  Rolling on his side, he began to kiss and nip at her neck in the way he knew that she liked best. "Oh no, Legolas," she chided, smiling.  "I have unpleasant news, beloved."  She extricated herself from his arms and rolled onto her side also so that she could face him.

"What news?" he asked curiously, but with a hint of disappointment, as he let her go.

"I must go with my mother to Lothlorien," she answered.  He sighed resignedly.  He'd wanted this to be a long visit.  In fact, he'd requested to attend the coming council simply to have a plausible excuse for making the increasingly perilous journey over the Misty Mountains.

"When are you leaving?" he asked rubbing his sleepy eyes in frustration.

"Today," she sighed.

"Today?!" he repeated a good deal louder than he had meant to.

"Sh…yes, today.  I'm so sorry, Legolas," she tried to pacify him.  She reached out to stroke his hair.  He sighed.

"When will you return?" he asked.

"I cannot say. I do not know," she answered, allowing him to wrap his arm around her waist and pull her closer.

"Then I think we should waste no more of this gorgeous morning talking about it," he said as he began to kiss the side of her neck again, rolling on top of her.  As she had greeted him, he wished to bid her farewell.  Deciding to humor him, at least a little, she smiled and closed her eyes.  _After all, what will it hurt now? she thought.  And he __was wonderful.  She began to brush her long fingers and palms over the naked skin of his shoulders and back.  Legolas laid a path of kisses to the intricately embroidered neckline of her gown where it lay on her shoulder.  He worked his way down, along the deep décolletage.  Too occupied with her flawless skin, he did not hear the quick footfalls in the corridor.  The pair was startled, their amorous spell broken by a brisk knock at the door._

Glorfindel was even more surprised by the sight that greeted him when he opened Arwen's chamber door without having waited for an answer.  Legolas sprang to his feet, a carefully neutral and impassive look on his face.  Arwen simply sat up and smiled warmly at the intruder as though he had seen nothing.  The older elf shook his golden head.  _Children_, he thought with amusement, _They__ think their love is unknown to all but themselves._

"Are you ready, child?" asked the flaxen haired elf.  She looked sadly at Legolas before making her reply.

"Nearly," she said standing and placing the few items she would need into her traveling pack.  "I will be out shortly."  Glorfindel took his cue and left the doorway, pulling the door to behind him.  Legolas, who had not moved, exhaled heavily.  Arwen set down her bag and went to him.  She laid her hand over his heart.  "I love you, always," she whispered.  The kiss that followed was long and longing.  When they parted, he spoke.

"And I, you," he said.  Holding her hand to his chest, he kissed her forehead one last time.  His eyes searched hers.  His gaze asked what the matter was, begged to know why she was leaving so abruptly, but he remained silent, knowing that neither would she answer him nor would it do any good to pry.

"Farewell, beloved," she said while the voice in her mind screamed—_Come with me. See your child come into the world.  I will be your princess, your queen for all time.  I love you_.  But the words were imprisoned in her mind even as they fought to reach her lips.  With every passing moment that she stayed, burning to tell him those things, the green gem her mother had given her, which still hung from the same silver chain, seemed to become heavier.  She wanted desperately to make him know that he was the sire of the child she carried, and carried gladly.  She knew that he would want to know, knew he would be overjoyed, but the weight of that stone about her neck weighed on her heart, silencing her.  Arwen touched her lips softly to his high cheekbone, more a platonic gesture than a passionate one, before turning, picking up her pack and departing the room.  Legolas wondered how long it would be before he would see her again.  It would be nigh a year.

As Arwen closed the door behind her, she felt as though she was shutting Legolas out of her life.  For some reason, she felt that she had betrayed him.  But she also felt that a weight had been lifted from her soul now that a solid wall stood between them, and, though she yearned to return to her lover, she seemed less and less burdened with every step she took toward the terrace where her mother and Glorfindel awaited her.

When she arrived, Arwen found not only her two traveling companions, but also her father and twin brothers waiting to see them off.  Elladan and Elrohir had wanted to accompany them.  It had been a great many years since they had seen their grandparents, but Celebrian had declined their company, telling them that it was a journey that only mother and daughter needed to make.  She had, at last, consented to be escorted by Glorfindel at Elrond's request.  Two women traveling alone was not wise, after all.

Celebrian bid her lord farewell with a deep kiss that made all three of their children smile happily.  It pleased them to know that their parents still loved each other in more than an intellectual way.  Elrond sensed in his wife's embrace, in the way her lips touched his, that she was keeping something from him.  After nearly two and a half thousand years of togetherness, how could he not have known?  The lord of Imladris did not ask her secret, though.  He knew, as Legolas had, that prying was no use.  Stubbornness was certainly one trait that mother and daughter shared.

Elrond fingered the black lock of his hair that his wife had woven into a love knot with her own golden tresses.  He smiled at her as she stood on her toes a little to kiss the foreheads of her two tall sons who had outgrown her in their youths.

Arwen kissed the cheeks of all three of the men in her beloved family.  Her father sensed the same secrecy in his daughter that he had in his wife, but the secret troubled Arwen in a way that disturbed him.  He disliked knowing that she was worried and being unable to assuage her concerns.  She also looked different to him somehow; different in a way that Celebrian had seemed before, but he could not place how or when.

"Go carefully, my loves," Elrond said as the two women and Glorfindel mounted their silver-white horses and turned to leave.  "Watch over them, Glorfindel," the husband and father called after them.  Elladan and Elrohir remained silent, still a little irritated at having been left behind.

"I will," Glorfindel answered over his shoulder.  He was honored that Elrond had entrusted him with such a precious charge.

Legolas watched unseen from Arwen's high window as the company disappeared into the trees.

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	8. The Long Road

Destiny's Arrow

(The Long Road)

The days wore on as the small group wended its way toward the craggy peaks of the Misty Mountains.  Only the two mornings following their departure from Imladris found Arwen ill, but even that was enough to prick Glorfindel's curiosity.  He began to observe her more carefully.  The increasing ease with which Arwen became fatigued, the very slight increase in the amount of lembas she ate, and a multitude of other things he might not have noticed if not for the morning sickness made him begin to suspect the true reason that they were journeying to the Golden Wood.

The seventh evening of their journey fell, soft and cool.  A twilight rainbow bled from the horizon.  Glorfindel decided that this evening he would test his suspicion.  When they stopped for the day and supper was finished, Glorfindel went to his bed.  Once Celebrian was convinced he was asleep, she and Arwen began to speak in low voices.  Glorfindel listened silently.

"We will arrive in two weeks I should think," Celebrian said casually, watching the fire rather than her daughter.

"That is well," Arwen murmured,

"Will you not tell him, Arwen?"

"No," she shook her dark head.  "I can't.  Something has stilled my voice every time I have tried."

"Legolas is a fine elf who loves you.  He loves you very much, Arwen.  He deserves to know," the mother said.  There was a long silence as Glorfindel watched the firelight dance on their lovely faces.

"I know," Arwen sighed at last.  "I love him.  Truly, I do.  And I could ask for nothing more wonderful than for this life that grows within me to be of his creation, but somehow, mother, I cannot make him know it," she whispered.  Celebrian sighed.

"And what of your father and brothers?  What of your grandfather and Glorfindel?  Will you keep your secret from them even when it shows itself?" she asked.  The look on her daughter's face told her that that was, indeed, her plan.  "But why?"

"I do not know," Arwen answered, only barely keeping her voice from rising.  "I only know that only you and I and Grandmother can ever know."  Celebrian nodded.  She would respect her daughter's decision.  She knew that intuition was a powerful force.  Glorfindel looked on, as mother embraced daughter.

"I love you, my girl," Celebrian cooed.  Arwen laid her head in her mother's lap.  "How long has it been?" Celebrian asked as she stroked her daughter's dark hair.

"Eight weeks or so," Arwen replied.  Flames flickered and licked at two large beech logs, reminding her of the heat and passion in which this new life had been conceived.  One of her mother's long hands traveled down Arwen's side to the flat of her stomach, below her navel.  Her fingers gently probed, exploring the tautness of the barely perceptible convex that was beginning to develop.  Celebrian thought for a moment, then began to chuckle to herself.  Glorfindel wondered what was funny.  He was a good deal less than amused by the situation.  Arwen looked up at her mother and voiced his question.  "What are you laughing at?" she asked.

"Did it happen when you and your brothers went to deliver your father's summons to the Council to Thranduil?  Is that why you were so anxious to accompany them?" smiled Celebrian.  A sheepish grin crept across her daughter's upturned face.  "Not that I blame you," Celebrian added gently.  "Were I a younger elf...," she winked.  Mother and daughter were possessed by fits of giggles that they tried to stifle in attempt not to wake the wakeful Glorfindel.

He remained still and quiet, contemplating all he'd heard.  _Arwen with child?__  By Legolas?  And running to Lothlorien, to Galadriel?  Glorfindel did not understand in the least and endless thought churned on in his sleepless brain until it was his turn at the watch.  Celebrian, who looked immensely weary when he relieved her, smiled as she told him goodnight and went to her bed.  He sat silently against the tree trunk where the lady had watched, bow in his lap.  He wondered why Arwen had made up such a ridiculous story about not telling Legolas.  __Why was she protecting him if he'd refused to take responsibility for the child, if he would not acknowledge his marriage to her?—for he was sure that that was the case.  That would account for her not telling her father or brothers._

His mind continued to work as the night passed uneventfully but for the occasional raspy and sinister keening calls and answers of a pack of wargs in the high mountains that loomed ahead.  A deep sense of foreboding had come over him as they'd neared the foot of those peaks.  They would begin their passage the next day and it would be a slow one.  Even as surefooted and willing as their horses were, Celebrian and Arwen had agreed when Glorfindel had suggested that they lead their steeds up the steep, rocky, and narrow trail.  If they were lucky, they would not attract the attention of any unpleasant creatures that inhabited the crags and caves of those slopes.  Again, Glorfindel became annoyed with Arwen.  Should anything happen, she might slow them.

Why hadn't she told him?—he wondered bitterly.  He would have set Legolas in his place, made him fulfill his obligation to her.  He would have been her champion and defender.  Arwen had always been special to him since she was first born.  He loved her very much in his way.  He loved her as a father, a brother, and a friend.  Most especially, he loved her as a friend.

_Why didn't she tell me immediately?—_he wondered again.

"Why didn't who tell you what?" Arwen asked curiously.  He was not startled, but when he turned to face her, Glorfindel gaped.  Not only had she seemed to read his thoughts, but she stood before him, completely nude in the watery moonlight, clothes draped over her arm, skin glistening with tiny droplets of water.  "I've just had a bath before I came on watch," she smiled in answer to his unasked question.  "Besides, I am showing you nothing you have not seen before," she teased as she took a step closer to him.  The older elf sat agog only a moment longer before instinct seized him.  His hands went naturally to her waist and he began to caress the silken curves of her hips with his thumbs.  They smiled companionably at one another before he spoke.

"Not since your first trip to Greenwood, when, I suspect, your…um…association with the dear prince began," Glorfindel said with a sarcasm that rang of reproach, though she was unsure whether it was directed at her or Legolas.  She shrugged and gave him a look of feigned innocence.

"Anyway, what were you muttering to yourself?" she asked, shaking off the previous subject.

"Did I say that aloud?" Glorfindel returned with a question.

"Yes, you did.  Why didn't who tell you what?" she continued, scratching her nails lightly along his arms so that he could just feel it through his sleeves.  He pulled her a little nearer, and, though he did not answer her question immediately, his hot breath on her most intimate parts, the anticipation of what was to come next pushed all her concerns aside.  Arwen relaxed, closed her eyes, and let her head loll back.  Then, Glorfindel whispered slowly,

"Why didn't _you tell me about…," he paused and planted a soft kiss just below her navel,"…_this?_"  Her eyes snapped open.  She was struck by the blackness of the irises that she met with surprise.  She threw his hands off her hips and backed away.  Horror and anger rose in her eyes as she slipped on her clothes.  He let her go and settled back onto the ground, calmly awaiting her reply._

"How do you…," she began, but he cut her off.                           

"How do I know that you carry Legolas's child?" he asked smugly.  She only nodded, distress and confusion gathering in her expression.  "I was awake when you and your mother were discussing it," he said evenly.

"Eavesdropping?  You hadn't the decency to…," she managed to yell before he interrupted her again.

"I hadn't the decency to what?  To let someone I love be wronged by a spoiled, arrogant, brat of a prince who won't take responsibility for his actions and…," this time it was Arwen who interrupted him.

"They were my actions too, Glorfindel.  And, besides a prince, he is _none_ of those things.  Apparently you weren't eavesdropping closely enough when I told my mother that I left him _without telling him about the child," she growled._

"Do not protect him!" shouted the elf lord.  He seemed to burn with a terrible and frightening power in his anger, but Arwen was not intimidated.  She was furious.

"I am NOT protecting him!" she bellowed in argument.  "Do you think I _wanted to leave him?  Do you think I __want to bear this child without him by my side?"_

"No. _I think that you _did_ tell him and I think that he abandoned you," he spat.  She did not speak for a moment.  She could not find the words._

"Glorfindel," she said in a forced calm voice, "we have been friends all my life and now, I'm not sure whether I feel betrayed, angry, offended, or all three."

"You? You feel betrayed, angry, and offended?  Why didn't you tell me—your best friend.  Why didn't you tell me, Arwen?" he asked, anger receding and concern taking its place.  She sighed and shook her head.

"Because I knew you would act this way," she said.  She held up her hand to silence his impending objection.  "I knew you would be angry with me when you found out why I left because you won't understand.  I won't be able to make you understand the reason."

"Which is?"

"I left because I could not tell him.  But it is better that I did not.  If I had told him he would have insisted that I bond with him…" she was cut off again.

"And you should if you would bear him a child.  I cannot believe that it is _you who chooses to hide your marriage, for marriage it is to be with him as you have been.  You and I have shared much, Arwen, but not all.  Tell your father, tell his, let me…make his commitment for him if you cannot, but do not allow him to make you his whore," Glorfindel spat.  She regarded him icily._

"I will not," she said so finally that Glorfindel almost conceded the argument.

"Why not?" he asked when he regained his footing.         

"Because, readily as I would spend the rest of eternity with him, something tells me that I cannot," she sighed, knowing he wouldn't believe her.

"You cannot tell him.  You cannot bond with him.  You cannot do as you should.  You cannot do as you'd like.  _Why not?_" he asked emphatically.  Arwen closed her eyes and tried to explain as patiently as she could.

"Understand this.  Before we left, I tried to tell him.  Every time I tried, it was as though there was a weight on my heart.  That weight on my heart was as a weight on my breast, smothering me, pressing the breath out of me, strangling me, drowning me.  I _could not tell him, just as I __cannot stay with him," she told him.  Glorfindel sat stunned.  Though he thought little of it, he noticed that, as she spoke, she first fingered, then clutched the green stone that hung on its silver chain._

"Will you swear to me that this is the truth; that you go from him of your own free will?" he asked.

"You have my bond of trust, Glorfindel, and I have never broken it.  I shall swear nothing more," she answered softly not looking into his eyes even though he watched her intently.  The fair archer rose to his feet and went to her.  He lifted her chin, searching her eyes.

"It is not the way of our people, but is this what you wish?  You are sure?" he whispered the question.  Arwen laid her hands on his shoulders, stood on her toes, and touched her lips to the smooth, fair skin of his high forehead.  Glorfindel held her tenderly, more like a father's embrace than anything else.  She was grateful to him for his love and concern as she rested her head against his shoulder.

"Yes," was her only reply.

Celebrian lay listening for a while longer to be sure that the argument had truly resolved itself before allowing herself to begin to drift off to sleep.  But before dreams took her, Glorfindel sat heavily on one of the large logs by the fire.  His manner told her that he would speak.  At last, he did.

"I am sorry for my deception and eavesdropping," he said.  Celebrian rolled over so that she could see him.

"I'm glad that you did.  She would not have told you otherwise."

"I know," he sighed, "and I was a bit harsh, but I do love her, Celebrian.  She grows lovelier with each passing day…with each passing moment, I sometimes think.  I want her to be happy."

"You don't like Legolas, do you?" she asked.

"Not especially, no," he answered truthfully.  Celebrian only smiled.

"You are too alike," she whispered.  Glorfindel glared resignedly.  He knew that it was true.  She continued, "You only see in him the things that you _dis_like about yourself, but he is strong like you and, like you, he is loyal—to a fault sometimes."  Glorfindel gave a derisive snort.  "Believe what you will, but he will prove himself one day.  You and I may have long departed for the West…we may not see it, but he will," she finished.  Glorfindel considered pensively for a moment before speaking,

"Foresight and wisdom flow thick in your blood, Celebrian, so I will let it be you who tells or keeps this knowledge from Lord Elrond and your sons," he sighed.  Again, Celebrian smiled sagely.

"If you believe that Seeing is in my blood, it is in Arwen's, too."  And with that, she cocooned herself once more in her warm, soft blanket and began to meditate, drifting ever closer to sleep.

Though he felt reassured, Glorfindel still doubted Legolas's worthiness.  He unfurled his bedroll and lay down next to Celebrian, his bow, quiver, and sword all within easy reach.  Another ululating wolf's cry rent the quiet of the fluttering leaves that the night wind stirred and the continual chirping and buzzing of nocturnal insects.

Arwen sat the rest of the night watch.  Sometimes she stared into the sky.  The black canvas was riddled with a million tiny pinholes through which shone the light of Creation.  She picked out the multitude of constellations she knew.  Sometimes she closed her eyes and listened to the night.  She could hear Glorfindel snoring softly where he lay asleep.  A third and then a fourth wolf raised its chilling voice.  And sometimes she wept quietly for the love she had left behind her and to which she could never return.

Legolas slept fitfully in a cold bed more than a hundred leagues away.  He had rarely slept in a solitary bed when he had visited Rivendell and now it troubled his sleep and plagued his dreams.

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AN:  I have decided to split the flashback here because I have been being hounded by a certain someone *cough* Vanessa.  But that's ok. If she didn't bug me I'd be even pokier.  Click on that little button and write me one!  Enjoy          ~DR

AN2: 5/8- Write me a review dammit! It's my birthday! YAY!!

AN3: 5/17- "…We'll bring it out this Sunday…Tuesday…next week…in about a month…we'll bring it out when we're fucking ready, alright?" –Eddie Izzard

AN4: 5/20- OK people, it isn't a matter of me withholding the story to torture you.  I have simply got more important things to do…like take my exams and do well in college for example.  Gimme a fuckin' break will ya?


	9. Through the Mountain Pass

Destiny's Arrow

(Through the Mountain Pass)

Morning came.  Steely, threatening clouds had gathered in the night.  Through the one visible patch of clear sky, the travelers could see the beginnings of a thunderhead in the cloud bank that came rolling languidly over the mountains.  They rode at a leisurely pace, hoping against the east wind that the storm would dissipate or change its course before they reached it.  It did not.

The warmth of the sun was denied them as a chill wind whipped about the rocky feet of the Misty Mountains.  All three elves donned long cloaks that, though they looked insubstantial, kept out a remarkable amount of the biting cold.  They regarded the jagged peaks above as they discussed how best to ascend.  At length, they agreed to let their steeds pick their road, for as surefooted as elves were, the horses they bred were even more so.

The beginning of the road leading to the wide pass was obscured.  It had been purposefully neglected by the elves that once lived in the region to prevent curious and unwary travelers from straying too high into the mountains when foul things began to populate the cavernous bowels of the range.  Even the Dunedain of the North could not have discerned it.  After an hour or so of slow going, they found the true path, wide and even at first.  As they ascended it became much steeper.  The road grew narrow and the ground, rocky.

About noon, just as the company set out after their brief lunch, a light rain began to fall.  It continued sporadically all day, but by mid afternoon it had grown heavier and by early evening the travelers were damp to the skin and chilled to the bone.  None of them was in a particularly pleasant mood.  Arwen had not spoken to Glorfindel beyond what had been absolutely necessary.  He had not persisted in his attempts to make conversation, knowing that she was still angry with him.  Celebrian spoke quietly to her daughter who replied with only nods and glances.  The quiet added to the growing tension they all felt.

The afternoon wore on uneventfully.  They had seen no sign of danger all day.  Small birds chirped happily and, had the sun been out, it would have been a lovely day.  As it was, the passage was growing tiresome at best.  They had made a surprising amount of progress considering their increasingly rough path and the rain.  When the way became too steep and rocky, they dismounted and led their horses.  By late afternoon they had crested the pass and begun down the other side.  But with early dusk came a feeling of foreboding.

 A flicker of movement in his peripheral vision had caught Glorfindel's eye as he surveyed the terrain for a suitable place for them to stop and stay the night.  "Stop," he said suddenly.  He felt hungry eyes on the back of his neck.  Something was watching them—something malevolent.  Something close.  The two women sensed it as well.  "Mount your horses," Glorfindel instructed in a too calm voice.  Once astride his own steed, he unshouldered his bow.  He closed the gap between himself and his companions.  He would not be separated from the two precious ladies he had been charged to protect.  They proceeded slowly.  The road was still steep and strewn with loose stones.

Then, a sound rose above the footfalls of the horses.  A chill ran up Arwen's spine as she realized it was a voice, but only barely recognizable as such.  The scratchy gargling and metallic hisses of the speech identified it as an orkish voice.  She had never heard anything quite like it; though her father, Glorfindel, and others had described the black speech to her many times.

Glorfindel understood a bit of the foul language and this, he understood.  "Close the circle," it had said.

"GO!" he barked as much to Arwen and Celebrian as to his own horse.  The women did not need to be told a second time.  All three charged down the slope as quickly as their steeds could manage.

A clutch of large boulders rose up on either side of the path ahead.  As they approached, four orcs sprang into view, hissing and spitting.  Their greasy looking black skin contrasted the sadistically gleeful grins on their ugly, misshapen faces.  Two crouched on the largest of the boulders and two more blocked the road.

Several more harsh shrieks went up behind the elves.  Glorfindel did not look back.  He had no intention of turning around.  As he dropped the reins, he was furious with himself for not anticipating this attack.  He knew he should have realized that this was the perfect place for an ambush.  The road was narrow and treacherous and the enemy had the high ground ahead.  The archer notched an arrow and took aim as his horse half cantered, half slid down the path.  The gnarled black creature atop the boulder to the left of the path crumpled and fell.  The elvish point had pierced his yellow eye.

Glorfindel smiled to see that both Celebrian and Arwen had drawn their swords.  They were, by no means, helpless.  Mother and daughter rode so close together, Arwen on the left, her mother on the right, that their legs touched.  The two orcs that stood in their way did not stand a chance.

Arwen's horse laid back its ears, threw its head forward and snapped at the orc on her side.  He recoiled, dropping his guard.  The elf gave a fierce, angry cry as her blade whisked through the air.  The orc's head hit the ground with a sickly thud next to his cruelly curved scimitar—his body wavered only a moment before buckling also.

Celebrian's steed began to skid down the way on its haunches.  A sharp tug on the reins brought its head and chest high as it lifted off the ground.  The horse lashed out with its front legs, pawing and screaming at the other orc.  In his surprise, he also let his scimitar fall from the ready.  Celebrian siezed her opportunity and slashed him from shoulder to hip, her sword skittering across his ribs and slicing deep into his belly, nearly disemboweling him.  He clutched at the deep, raw, crimson wound, trying to hold it closed as he fell back and lay still.

Glorfindel had a bead on the last orc that threatened his companions.  This one had remained crouched atop the right-hand boulder and watched, dumbfounded, as the elven women had slaughtered his comrades.  But just as Glorfindel was about to release the arrow, his horse squealed in anger and pain.  He felt the arrow's feathers slip between his fingers when his steed jerked sharply, sending the shot wildly off its mark.  The elf overbalanced and felt the inevitable fall coming.  He threw his bow aside.  It would surely be splintered if he fell with it.  The ground was far less than ideal for a fall.  Glorfindel felt and heard at least one of his ribs crack on the largish cobble he smashed down on.  A thick black shaft protruded from the animal's white hindquarter.  His fall had knocked the breath out of him and he was momentarily unable to move.  Glorfindel watched in horror as the last orc, who she had not seen, took careful aim and fired a small dart at Celebrian.  It hit her squarely in the side of the neck.  She reflexively clutched at it and quickly pulled it out.  The deep cold that began to spread rapidly over her body told her it had been poisoned.

Arwen, who had ridden slightly ahead to check for more orcs, turned to a screech of rage in time to see the dark creature leap from the boulder down onto her mother in the failing light.  The force of the compact creature's impact knocked Celebrian from her steed.  She was already beginning to lose her strength and could do little to fight him off.  He sank his sharpened teeth into the muscle between her shoulder and neck.  A thin stream of her blood ran down her chest, soaking the silver-grey material of her traveling cloak.  She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound escaped.  It was rapidly becoming difficult for her to breathe.  Arwen spurred her horse back up the hill with a shriek as chilling as any the orcs who were rushing down toward them had voiced.

Meanwhile, Glorfindel winced in pain as he picked himself up.  His horse trotted lamely to him.  He was furious.  Drawing his long blade from the scabbard on his saddle, he wheeled around to face the ten orcs who were tightening a semicircle in front of him.   A fierce glare twisted his features.  He drew a great breath and bellowed inarticulately at them as he charged forward.  Half of them retreated back up the hill to safety.  The elf ignored the shooting pain in his side as he slashed and cleaved the five orcs that had stood their ground.

When all his attackers lay bloodied and broken around him, Glorfindel charged toward Celebrian and her attacker.  He meant to bring down his wrath in full on the foul monster.  Even Celebrian's steed pawed and snapped at the orc who clutched at its mistress.  The orc snarled and dug his grimy fingernails into Celebrian's sides, drawing ten small rivulets of blood.

Arwen reached them first.  Celebrian was already unconscious.  She realized that the orc was concentrating on her and her mother's angry horse, but had not realized or remembered that Glorfindel was coming from behind him.  She began to yell and made a show of brandishing her sword to occupy him in the moment when, if he'd realized that Glorfindel was bearing down on him, he could have done something about it.  Then, suddenly Glorfindel was there, sword naked and gleaming, alight with rage.  The elf raised his sword high above his head and plunged the shining steel between the orc's shoulder blades.  The look of shock on his revolting face was darkly comical, Arwen thought as she rode past smiling coldly.  She rode toward the five remaining orcs that were quickly but cautiously heading back down the slope.  An occasional arrow flew past.  _These orkish archers are very poor shots—Arwen thought—_apparently they need a stationary target the size of a horse to do any damage.  And with his back to them, no less.  Animals._  On horseback she herded them back up the road, away from Glorfindel and her mother.  She kept watch on his progress over her shoulder.  Satisfied that the orcs were gone for the moment, she rode back down the road, picking up Glorfindel's bow as she passed._

Though the effort caused him another stabbing pain, Glorfindel quickly lifted Celebrian's slack body and mounted her horse, cradling her in his arms.  It was nearly completely dark.  Arwen had repelled the rest of the band of orcs, but they would be back soon with reinforcements.  Glorfindel whistled to his own horse and the three of them were underway again.

The road soon became gentler and they were able to advance at a tentative canter.  They rode hard until they were well away from the mountains.  The rain tapered off and the clouds broke.  When they finally stopped, the nearly full moon was high in the sky.  Arwen set about gathering athelas, whose leaves shone silver in the bright moonlight.  Using what her father had taught her, she did what she could for Celebrian.  She cleaned the gouges from the orc's filthy fingernails, though they already looked like they were becoming infected.  She made a paste of the crushed leaves and some of the cordial of Imladris.  Though Celebrian remained unconscious, by the time Arwen was finished, she was, at least, breathing normally again.

Glorfindel tended to his wounded steed.  He removed the arrow which, thankfully, did not break off.  Arwen procured a needle from her mother's bag while he heated water and boiled the long silver-white hair he'd plucked from the horse's tail.  He cleaned the wound thoroughly and stitched it closed.  After he'd finished, Glorfindel began to stroke the horse's fine coat and massage its weary muscles.  He thanked the animal for its help, and whispered to it where they were going and the way.

When he had finished, he removed his shirt and allowed Arwen to inspect his injury.  A large bruise had spread over his whole side.  Arwen tried to be gentle as she probed the area with her slender fingers.  She found the fracture quickly.

"CAREFUL!" Glorfindel yelped in pain when she pressed even gently on the bone.

"Breathe," she directed.

"I can't, woman.  It hurts," he snapped.

"It isn't that bad, _child," she said pressing in a little harder on the insult.  He groaned loudly, but gritted his teeth and did not cry out.  "It doesn't feel as though you've broken anything badly."  She removed several yards of linen bandage from her pack and wrapped it tightly about Glorfindel's midsection.  Though the actual wrapping was very painful, once she was finished he felt much better._

"Thank you," he said quietly as he pulled his shirt back on.  He leaned against a smooth sycamore and settled in for the night's watch.  Though she was exhausted, Arwen tried to stay awake with him.  "Go lie down with your mother and sleep, dear one," he told her at last.

"No, I don't want to leave you alone," she answered even as her eyes drooped and she fought to keep them open.

"You are the most stubborn person I have ever known, Arwen.  Go to sleep," he chided.  He kissed her forehead.  "Go," he said.  She scowled at him, but obeyed, turning to go.

"Thank you, Glorfindel.  Thank you for saving her," she said quietly.  He only nodded.  He did not feel able to accept her thanks.  _If I'd been paying more attention, it might not have happened, it shouldn't have happened at all_—he told himself.  "It wasn't your fault.  You couldn't have known," she said as though this time she'd been reading _his thoughts.  "Thank you."_

"Of course," he smiled.  She kissed his cheek, then lay down and fell almost immediately asleep next to her mother.

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AN:  Okay!  Here it is!  The bug got me and I wrote it all at once from 3-5 AM.  I haven't read over it really.  I will.  If I find anything glaring I'll change it.  For all you accuracy geeks like me out there, this is (duh) where Celebrian gets the poisoned wound in Tolkien's timeline…2509, I think.  So there's your frame of reference if you give a shit.  Please write me a review even though I am horrible and have taken so long. 

AN2: I'll send the next chapter to the person who writes the 100th review the day before I post it…you'll have the inside track! Just make sure to leave me your e-mail address.

AN3:  Poster mj (Anonymous) was the 100th poster (for the record) but I need his/her e-mail address.  If you'd like to contact me, mj, at wired136@hotmail.com I will be happy to honor my little bribe once I get things written and in order.  And if you feel like prostrating yourself before me and telling me how great I am (just kidding ;-)), I might be willing to send it out to a couple other people. 


	10. Greetings

Destiny's Arrow

(Greetings)

Light.  Piercing, aching, hateful brightness.  Celebrian squinted into the fresh morning sunlight, shielding her eyes with her arm.  It took a long time for her to adjust to the brightness.  When, at last, she could look around, she found her daughter crouched on the opposite side of the fire, stirring the contents of a small clay vessel whose bottom rested in the coals. The morning air was brisk and chilly.  Warmth from the small fire warmed Celebrian's front, but her back was inexplicably warm as well.  When she looked behind her, she found Glorfindel curled up next to her, still asleep, bundled in a blanket.  She smiled at him.  As long as they had been friends, she had always felt maternal toward him when he slept.  He reminded her of her sons.  Celebrian's eyes returned to her daughter.  Arwen looked up from her work and smiled.

"Good morning," Arwen smiled.  "I'm glad to see you awake finally.  How do you feel?"

"Good…," there was a metallic rasp in her voice that had never been there before.  The smile faded from Arwen's face a little and was replaced by a look or puzzlement and concern.  She said nothing though as Celebrian cleared her throat.  "Good morning to you too," she said, internally surprised to still hear the grating quality that colored her speech.  "How long have I slept?" she asked, clearing her throat again.

"Two days and a night," Arwen answered, but Celebrian barely heard her.  She was looking around.  Everything looked wrong.  All the colors were duller, washed out somehow.  The sunlight felt different on her face—cooler than it should have.  It was too bright still.

Arwen watched her carefully as she continued to stew the herbs and roots over the fire.  She did not take her eyes from her mother as she drew a small dagger and cut the tip of her finger, adding a few drops of her own blood to the potion.

"Drink this," she instructed finally, offering her mother the cup.  Celebrian took the vessel and sipped the steaming liquid.  She sputtered, surprised by the taste.

"Blood," she exclaimed looking into the cup.  She stirred it with her finger and drew it out to examine the contents more closely.  It was clear, not even the slightest tinge of pink.  Things began to appear more normal though.  The young, green, spring buds were the right vivid color again.  The sun felt a little warmer.  Celebrian found herself able to look at the sky without squinting.  At last, she looked to Arwen.  "Why does this taste of blood?" she inquired of her daughter.  In reply, Arwen simply held up the finger she had cut.

"You should not be able to taste it," Arwen said shaking her head slightly.

"Orc blood," said Glorfindel sleepily from the ground.  Both women looked at him, a little startled to find him awake.

"What do you mean?  It is _Arwen's_ blood in this draught," Celebrian protested.

"It is.  But the poison on that dart was orc blood," Glorfindel explained, loosing his arms from his blankets and stretching.  "Its effect is variable, and you were bitten as well."  Celebrian nodded, pressing on the sore flesh at her shoulder.  Glorfindel continued, "Arwen was right to add her own blood to that cordial.  An orc's blood is most dangerous to an elf because they were like us once.  To be poisoned with their black blood is to be infected with Darkness.  Arwen's blood should help to thwart it.  Orcs have a taste for blood, so its taste is stronger to you now."  Celebrian nodded.  She gulped the remaining contents of the vessel as quickly as possible.  She did not like the idea of "having a taste" for her own daughter's blood.

By noon they had broken camp and set forth once more, Arwen and Celebrian on Arwen's horse and Glorfindel on Celebrian's.  It was a bright, pleasant, if brisk and windy day.  As it wore on though color and warmth began to leech out of Celebrain's world again.  Rather than feeling nourished and energized, she felt drained by the cheerful spring sunlight—a feeling that worsened as they approached Lothlorien.  The remainder of the journey transpired without incident…

The sun was a brilliant orange disk that sunk ever closer to the western horizon as the travelers neared the outskirts of the Golden Wood.  Across a great plain, Celebrian sighted the towering mallorns of her native land, vibrant green in the summer of their lives.  But now, to the Galadriel's daughter, they seemed to loom and forbid rather than to welcome her home.  The amber glow of sunset lent the forest a golden luminance that intimated its strong and fecund life force.

As they drew nearer, a party of Galadrim that awaited them came into view.  Chief amongst them was Haldir who stood at the side of the Lord and Lady of the Wood.  Glorfindel's keen eyes recognized him some distance off.  A broad boyish grin spread across his fair face and he spurred his steed forward, galloping to meet his friend.  Pulling the horse to a sharp halt, Glorfindel launched himself from its back and nearly knocked Haldir down with the enthusiasm of his brotherly embrace.  Both laughed happily; glad of their reunion.  It had been far too long since they'd last seen each other as far as they were concerned and Glorfindel was not about to let the moment be spoiled by showing the pain that shot through his side when Haldir regained his balance and hugged him back with similar zeal.

Composure regained, but still smiling merrily, Glorfindel took Galadriel's hand and bowed reverently, touching his forehead lightly to her fingers.  She said nothing, but smiled and embraced him tenderly, like a son.  She seemed to be aware and careful of his injury.  Then, in another gesture of respect and friendship, Glorfindel placed his right hand over his heart.  Celeborn mirrored him.  They, too, then embraced like old companions.

By the time Glorfindel had made his greetings, Celebrian and Arwen had arrived.  Arwen dismounted, and then helped her mother down.  Celebrian felt her legs begin to go watery under her.  She laid a hand on the animal's withers to steady herself, telling herself it was because she'd been astride a horse all day that her legs didn't seem to want to hold her, ignoring the fact that she actually felt stronger now that the sun had dipped so near the horizon.

Galadriel marked but made no comment.  She smiled as she went to meet her daughter.  The closer she'd come, the more Celebrian had inexplicably dreaded this haven of elves.  Her mother's presence, though, calmed her, soothed her as it always had.  It seemed that she could hear, or at least feel, this queen's thoughts and they told her that all would be well as her mother kissed her forehead and held her tightly.  Celebrian then went to her father and finally to Haldir, hugging them both.

At last, it was Arwen's turn to greet her grandmother.  The turmoil of analysis, decision, and doubt that had clouded her mind since she left Rivendell was suddenly quieted by Galadriel's touch.  This was the first time they had seen one another since Arwen had been no more than a girl.  She felt like a child now, too—a selfish brat.  _Why have I come now? Because I am pregnant and need help hiding it.  If it were not for me, mother would be well and Glorfindel would be at home where father needs him.  And for the first time, Arwen felt the hot sting of shame and guilt in her eyes.  Galadriel brushed a stray lock of hair out of her granddaughter's lovely face.  Without a word, she assured Arwen that she had nothing to be ashamed of—told her she had done the right thing in coming._

"Thank you," Arwen whispered.  The morning star smiled at her counterpart.  But though a smile lit her face, Arwen saw sadness and pity in her grandmother's eyes that she did not understand.

"Come," Galadriel spoke at last in voice as light and unearthly as all the heavens above, "come, my beloved family.  Be merry, all, and do not let the hardships of your path darken your safe arrival."  She took Arwen's hand, then Celebrian's, and together they started back to the heart of the forest.

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AN:  Okay, I know this is a dinky little chapter, but I was kinda stuck and I needed to get to Lothlorien.  So here I am…yay.  Let me clarify one thing, just in case your little brains are in the gutter: Glorfindel and Haldir are NOT gay.  There will be no slashy shenanigans whatsoever…completely platonic love, got it? Good.  Now, write me a review and make me happy!    ~DR 


	11. The Golden Wood

Destiny's Arrow

(The Golden Wood)

The breeze was always comfortably warm in Lorien as it swayed the willowier branches of the monolithic mallorn which supported the high flet.  The night was clear and stars glimmered down through the few gaps in the dense canopy.  It was a fine evening for dining outdoors.

At one end of the long table sat Galadriel—a radiant, shining, splendid light against the shadowy backdrop of the sylvan nighttime.  Celeborn sat at the head of the table opposite her.  Along either side, all the guests and members of the household held lively conversation.  Glorfindel claimed the attention of those around him with the account of their battle with the orcs.  The general good humor of the party grew with the amount of wine that its members had imbibed.  Laughter rang out more and more frequently as the meal continued.

At last, gradually, elves began to migrate into the Great Hall.  Within, Haldir and Glorfindel, arm in arm and chalices in hand began a song which, it became rapidly evident, they were too drunk to finish.  Soon though, voices better and belonging to those who were sober enough to remember all the words rose above.  Song, recitation of poems, and laughter carried on late into the night.

After several hours, Celeborn lifted his head from his mistress's bosom where he had rested it and announced that _he for one was going to bed.  He cast a meaningful and pointed glance at Galadriel as he rose to leave.  She smiled a little, but did not follow.  Glorfindel and Haldir, still slightly inebriated, continued to speak animatedly as they wandered off together in the general direction of their beds.  A few others followed discreetly to ensure that they made it to the ground by way of the ladder.  Several couples drifted away together.  One by one the hall emptied until only Galadriel, Celebrian and Arwen were left.  None of them spoke.  The small fire that was left burned down to embers before Galadriel broke the silence._

"Who is your lover?" she asked.  Then responding to the puzzled look her granddaughter's face, "I see and know much, but not all," she smiled.

"His name is Legolas…," Arwen fell silent as her grandmother nodded sagely,"…you know of him?"

"Your grandfather has sometimes had occasion to visit Thranduil.  He has spoken favorably of the prince—spoken him courteous, brave, of great skill as an archer, loyal, intelligent—not so wise perhaps, but intelligent…and fair," Galadriel smiled once more at these last words.  Celebrian smiled as well.

"He is all of those things…," Arwen began.

"And I would be glad to have him for my son, as would your father, I'm sure.  Your brothers and he are great friends also, Arwen," interrupted Celebrian.

"That must not be," Galadriel interjected evenly, calming the irritation that showed on Arwen's face.  Celebrian looked a little indignant, but kept quiet.  "How long has it been since it began?"

"Centuries.  And I have craved no other since first I found that I loved him…since first we met.  My heart is glad that I carry his child…," the dark haired elf spoke earnestly as Galadriel sighed heavily.

"Then why will you not tell him…?," Celebrian broke in again.

"BUT MY MIND is troubled," Arwen drowned her mother's question out.  "I do not know why, for l love him with every part of myself, but I have not told him.  I cannot," she finished.  Galadriel silently searched in a pocket of her white robe.  After a moment she produced a brooch.  It was crafted of finest silver in the figure of an eagle.  So detailed, so meticulous was the craftsmanship that from the finely hooked beak, to the tips of the wide spread wings, to the cruelly curved talons the miniature bird looked as though it would soar from the elf queen's hand at any moment.  But more than that, Arwen was struck by the magnificently cut pale green stone set in the bird's breast.  The sight of it sent a shock through her body.  Her hand immediately clutched the pendant that adorned her bosom.  Her steely eyes widened in question.  This stone was obviously the mate to the one she wore, but she did not understand the implications of its discovery.

"The jewel you wear is far more than it seems," Galadriel said simply.  "When you tried to tell Legolas what happened?" she asked.  Arwen paused in thought for a moment before answering.

"I could not speak.  I felt as though the breath were being crushed out of me," she replied slowly, brows knitted.  "I was wearing it…always…when I tried…why, grandmother?" she trailed off.

"It is a harbinger of Destiny," Galadriel answered.  "It grieves me to tell you of this, but it must be told.  Your mother was wise to bring you to me," she sighed again.  "I hoped that you would tell me of a foolish, youthful infatuation that could be easily ended, but it runs deeper than that.  You love a fine and worthy elf.  You carry his child, but you cannot—you must not bind yourself to him.  It would be simpler if you never saw him again.  You have not promised yourself to him, have you?" she asked.  Arwen could only shake her head.  She felt as if a great sorrow was, as a wind, rapidly swirling about her.  Questions rained down into the troubled sea of her mind, but one floated above all the others. Her voice trembled with quashed tears when she spoke it.

"If not him," hearing the words—_not him—from her own lips hardened the idea and a tear rolled down her cheek, but she was determined to finish her question without succumbing to the terrible grief that threatened to overwhelm her, "then who?"_

"A son of Man.  I have seen him in my dreams.  In my dreams I have heard him call you by the name of your ancestor, Tinuviel," she answered.

"And if I refuse?  If I lay down this pendant and marry with my dear love, the father of my child?" Arwen sounded strained as she asked this.  She tried to disguise the choler that rose up in her like cold fire at being denied her free choice.  Celebrian heard it and knew that Galadriel did too.

"Hush, child," Celebrian scolded eyeing her mother, afraid of rousing her wrath.  The Lady regarded her granddaughter with dignified detachment for a moment before she spoke.

"Will you look into the Mirror?"

"I will," Arwen nodded.

"Tomorrow, then, when you are not so hot and may receive its vision more objectively.  Now, I will retire to my bed.  Go in peace and know this: it is a burdensome fate that I would not have wished for you and, when all is said, it will be your choice to accept it or not," said Galadriel.  And with that she rose, kissed them both and went from the room.  After a few silent moments, during which the crackling of the last dying embers became strangely loud, Arwen rose with forced grace.

"Grandmother gifted this to me when I was only a child.  She instructed that I should have it when I came of age, is it not so?" Arwen asked, anger still shading her voice.

"It is," answered her mother.

"'An heirloom of the women of my family,' that is what she called it. 'You should wear it always,' that was what she said.  Then it truly is more than it seems.  A bauble, a pretty thing meant not to honor and continue the memory of my ancestors, but to manipulate and control!"  Before her mother could say or do anything to stop her, Arwen snatched the chain from around her neck, breaking the delicate clasp.  She ran toward from the Hall, skirts flowing out behind her, stopping at the very edge of the flet.  She hesitated for only a moment before, with a shriek of fury, she hurled the necklace, with all her might, into the darkness.

Celebrian walked outside into the cool night air.  She went to her daughter and laid a long hand on her shaking shoulder.  Silent sobs wracked Arwen's slender body as her mother folded her into a warm embrace.  For a long time, they stood—mother and child.  Celebrian held her youngest babe—her only daughter, stroking her dark head and cooing what comfort she could.  Celebrian held her until the tears subsided.

"I want him, mother.  I want him here with me now, to hold me as he used to.  But that will never again be, will it?" Arwen said at last, still trembling a little.

"It will be your choice, Arwen.  Your grandmother can only show you the paths before you.  It is you who must walk what way you choose."

Arwen said nothing more, but kissed her mother's cheek and went to the ladder.  She descended the long trunk of the great tree.  When she reached the mossy, leaf strewn forest floor, she removed her slippers.  Arwen always preferred to go without shoes.  It strengthened her connection to living Earth, to the flow and rhythms of Nature.  She stood for a moment, indecisively amongst the mighty roots and, then, she began to walk.  Her feet carried her she knew not where.  They took her east, out of the heart of the wood toward the place where, in a few hours, the sun would peek over the horizon.

As she went, the certainty that she could never be with the one she loved became real.  _I may never even see him again.  He will never know how I love him—never know of this child…our child_, she thought to herself.  A shock of realization jolted her.  She walked faster then, taking long strides over the uneven ground.  Shock became confusion.  _Why?  Why this?  Why now? she wondered.  The haze that obscured all rational thought began to settle like a cruel frost over all her other thoughts and feelings.  Above, she could no longer see the city in the trees. Then, she ran.  The rime hardened into a shell of anger that dominated her thoughts.  __She cannot ask me to give him up—not now, not after five CENTURIES!  How can I deny my child a father?  It murdered all the happiness she had left as an unexpected freeze bites the tender buds of spring.  All she could do was run.  Her feet only lightly touched the earth beneath her.  Nimbly as any deer, she sped, weaving through the magnificent, smooth, silver-grey mallorn trunks; the pillars that supported the canopy above.  Hot tears of rage seared her eyes, blinding her as she tore through the night._

A clearing opened ahead of her.  The small knoll in the middle was carpeted with delicate golden elanor.  Arwen took no notice as she trod them down.  She halted in the center and looked up at the sky where the stars still winked down at her, unaware and unconcerned with her plight.  Her sobs became a sort of desperate laughter.  Pressure began to build in her chest.  To abate it, she took a great, deep breath.  Then, with everything she had; with all her frustration, her anger, and all her slighted love—she screamed.  The long, high, piercing note that continued until all her breath was spent shattered the tenuous silence.  It rang to the heavens and was spirited away on the night wind.  Arwen clenched her fists and screamed again.  Misery poured from her soul.  Very soon, she was hoarse but continued until she was numb to all feeling and she was completely exhausted.  Her palms bled where her fingernails had bitten in.  No tears were left to cry when, at last, she collapsed onto the ground and sat unable to feel, unable to move, unable to do anything but exist…

Haldir clapped Glorfindel stoutly on the back as they walked, laughing through the forest.  They had wandered aimlessly amongst the trees for several hours talking and catching up on the time that had passed since they had seen one another last.  The mass quantity of ale and wine that they had jointly consumed lubricated the conversation.

During a brief pause in the dialogue, a sound drifted to their sharp ears.  It was a scream—a long unwavering shriek that only gradually tapered off before resuming with identical intensity.  It was a cry of anger and frustration, of misery, and it chilled them more wholly than any sound of elvish voice either had ever heard before.  It sobered them entirely as they lit out towards the voice.

The sound continued for a disturbingly long time.  Haldir led slightly, knowing the landscape better, but Glorfindel followed closely.  Through the trees ahead, both could make out a figure in the moonlight.  Haldir stopped abruptly at the edge of the clearing when he recognized the figure who sat, silently regarding her bleeding palms, amongst the golden flowers.

"My Lady Undomiel," he called as he rushed forward, closing the distance between them.  Arwen did not look up.  "M'Lady…M'Lady Undomiel," he cried more urgently when she did not respond to his first hail.  "Arwen!" he said again, laying his hand on her arm.  She recoiled from his touch and her eyes snapped to his—steely grey, fierce, and empty as a wild beast's, as though she did not know him at all.  Glorfindel slid to a crouched halt before her.

"Arwen…Arwen," he called, brushing his fingers over her cheek at last to get her attention.  She turned the same unseeing gaze upon him.  "Arwen?" it was a question this time.  "Are you hurt?"  Mutely, she held up her gouged hand.  Glorfindel nodded.  "Why did you scream?  What is the matter, dearest child?" his eyes were wide and full of concern as he spoke.  Arwen lifted a hand to his cheek and caressed it, leaving a deep crimson smear on his fair skin.  Feeling and soul began to return to her eyes with the contact.  At length, she spoke in the whisper of one whose voice is wasted.

"I may not love him that I love," her tone was deadened, but her face ticked as though more tears would reiterate the lines that already stained her face.  "I do and I must, but I may not," she said numbly.  Her eyes drifted out of focus, becoming hollow again as if she were visibly receding into her own mind, losing herself in a deep chasm of abysmal thought.  Arwen turned from them both and lay down on the mat of flora beneath her.

Haldir stayed still as stone, a stunned expression still stuck on his face.  He only barely knew Arwen.  She had been little more than an infant the last time he'd seen her and he was certainly not used to dealing with hysterics.  Elves did not have hysterics—they did not behave this way.  He did not want to touch her, he feared to.  She seemed so fragile to him, almost as if she were spun from glass that even the slightest breath of wind might shatter.

Glorfindel remained unmoving for only a moment.  Then, he crept forward and gingerly wrapped his arms around her and drew her close to his broad chest.  She neither resisted nor helped him as he carefully lifted her from the cold ground.  Her body was limp and surprisingly light in his arms.  Her eyes were open, staring unblinkingly into the dark, but her head lolled back as it would have, had she been unconscious.  Slowly, Glorfindel rose to his feet.

"Come.  We will take her to her bed and wake my Lady and yours as well," Glorfindel said quietly.  Haldir nodded and moved to follow.

"No," croaked Arwen softly.  Both the other elves started.  Because neither of them had expected her to speak, her distant sounding whisper had the same effect as a shout.

"But…," Glorfindel began to protest.

"No," the quiet syllable silenced him.  Glorfindel did not object further.  Together, the three of them made their way back toward the acropolis.  Only a short time later, Arwen began to come back to herself.  She lifted her head to look into her bearer's face.  A paternal sort of worry still knitted his brow, but he smiled a little nonetheless.  Two dozen steps later, she encircled his neck with her arms and lightly kissed his cheek.  "Thank you," she whispered, still hoarse.  "Put me down if you like.  I can walk now."

"No, child, let me carry you.  It warms my heart to hold you…again," this last word was colored with thick layers of connotation.  Haldir chose, tactfully, to ignore it.  He knew little of their bond.  Glorfindel, out of respect, had never been forthcoming with the intimacies of their relationship—not even to such a close friend as Haldir.  Only the profundity of his love for Arwen had he expressed.

"Shall I stay with you tonight?" Glorfindel asked when, at last, they reached the ladder where he set Arwen on her feet.  No innuendo sullied the question.  Arwen shook her head.  Glorfindel nodded and turned to accompany Haldir to their adjoining quarters.  He had not taken a full step before her long fingers caught his hand.

"Perhaps…perhaps just until dreams take me," she said in her still raspy, but recovering voice.  Her tone was so innocent, so childlike that, when he turned, he almost expected to see the little girl who used followed him everywhere he went about Rivendell.  Not a child, but a woman stood before him; a woman who, from the look of her, needed not to be alone.

"Of course," he whispered.  "Goodnight, Haldir.  Sleep well, my friend," he bid, motioning for his friend to go without him.

"Goodnight," Haldir returned smiling politely.  "Glorfindel," he nodded, "My Lady.  May sleep bring you peace, and the morning's light find you well.  Though I do not know them, I am sorry for your troubles."  And with that, he vanished into the night.

Neither elf spoke as they made their way to Arwen's apartments.  Glorfindel pulled the door shut behind him.  She glanced furtively at him as she slipped the gown from her shoulders, removing her arms, but not letting the material fall.  Opening her trunk with one hand, the other clutching the gathered material about her chest, she began to rummage through her things looking for a nightdress.

"Let me," Glorfindel offered.  He neatly sorted through her fine garments until he found a matronly, white, silk gown.  She smiled at him as he took his place once more by the door.  He had known exactly what she was searching for.  Quickly, she slipped it on over the dress she already wore before letting it fall to the floor.

A silver basin and pitcher she retrieved from her nightstand.  After she had seated herself on the feather tick, she placed the basin between her feet and filled it with water.  The soles of her feet looked like they ought to have belonged to a hobbit they were so filthy.  She began to look forlornly about for a washcloth.

"Let me," Glorfindel volunteered once more.  He removed a clean cloth from the drawer in the night stand, went to her, knelt at her feet, and rolled up his sleeves.  Carefully and gently, he washed all the dirt and grime from her soft, pale skin and then rinsed her feet with clear water from the pitcher.  Then, he replaced them on the stand and procured a towel to dry her.  Arwen said nothing, but smiled at him gratefully whenever he locked eyes on her.

Clean now, she crawled under all the many layers of bedclothes and turned to face the wall.  The other elf resumed his place by the door.  He himself was beginning to doze when Arwen spoke again.

"Will you put out the light and lie with me a while?" she asked, not turning to look at him.  He smiled and chuckled to himself at little—_just as when you were a little girl.  Padding softly across the floor he extinguished the few lonely candles that held the shadows at bay.  His tunic he hung on the back of the chair tucked neatly under the matching writing desk and slid under the covers as well.  Her body was warm as he lay by her, his whole body cradling hers.  She breathed in sharply when he wrapped his arm around her, letting his hand rest on her belly._

"Sh," he whispered.  And softly he began to hum.  The tune was familiar to her and slowly the words came, warm and comforting also.  To the sound of his deep, soothing voice singing an ancient elvish lullaby, nestled safely in Glorfindel's arms, Arwen's dreams found her.

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AN:  Again, this was written in a fit of inspiration, so I'm going to have to wait a bit and read it again once it's posted to ferret out all the little nitpicks.  Please write me a review…I didn't get many on the last chapter, possibly because it was so short and possibly because ff.net has been broken. I dunno…but here's a nice long chapter (long as mine ever are in any event)…so wrote me one, please please please…don't make me beg *pout*.  Hope you're enjoying.  ~DR


	12. Nightmares and Dark Visions

Destiny's Arrow

(Nightmares and Dark Visions)

_That sound.  What is that sound?  Like a waterfall—but it ebbs and abates only to crash toward me again.  What birds are these that I hear?  They swoop and glide low over my head, shrilling their tinny screeches into the humid salty, breeze.  And that smell?  Sodden plants, musty decay, but fresh—clean, like a rainstorm._

_"Open your eyes, Legolas.  You must open your eyes," a voice purrs._

_"Who speaks?" I ask the voice._

_"Me," it answers.  It is my love.  Arwen.  Her silken fingertips brush my face and I open my eyes as she commands.  She stands before me at arms length on the narrow beach—the tide must be in.  Sadness shades her regal brow just as the dreary shades of overcast grey obscure the brilliance of the sun._

_From behind, the wind brings another sound to my ears.  A cry—a gull's, but different, more urgent it seems.  Again, I hear it.  A child—a babe?  A babe, I wonder as I turn to look._

_"No.  Only a gull," she says, taking my hand.  Her voice is fearful and her hand trembles as she tries to lead me away._

_"I did not speak my thoughts," I answer, standing firm, still looking down the endless beach into the wind that bears, again, the baby's cry._

_"Come, Legolas, it is just a bird," she assures me.  But all the birds are silent now.  Only the breeze—the breeze that becomes a wind tugs roughly at my hair.  Wind whips to howling gale and the crying babe begins to scream._

_"Do you not hear it?  How can you ignore a baby who howls so needfully?  Come with me, Arwen, and we will find her.  We will care for her," I say.  When I look at her, her eyes are empty.  It is as though the sound that tears at my heart fails to touch hers at all.  Everything I am demands that I leave her behind and find the child, but she stands immovable as the mountains and I cannot go from her.  "Please, my love.  Please come with me," I beg, but she will not.  She will not budge._

_"Go if you will, but I will not follow," she monotones.  Even as I watch with the wind rushing in my ears and an infant's screams reverberating in my head, she slides the gown from her shoulders.  It slithers down her body, the blood red fabric pooling at her feet, rippling with the gusts.  Locks of ebony play over her clear, creamy skin.  I want to touch her, to hold her, but she begins to back away from me.  Her heels sink into the wet sand as she nears surf that comes to meet her.  I stop.  I cannot say why, but I do not want her to go into the water.  "I must swim out," she tells me.  She moves further toward the waves.  They break just behind her, rushing about her hips in their hurry to lap the sandy shore._

_"No!  You will drown.  Please, do not.  Please…come to me, I beg you, Arwen," I implore her, the cries on the wind forgotten—overwhelmed by the roar of the waves.  I wade out into the water after her.  She is crying now._

_The waves behind her become stronger, more violent.  And then, a swell, of greater breadth and height than any before begins to gather and rise behind her.  My soaked clothes seem heavy as lead.  They weigh me down and I will not reach her in time.   At the breaker's dark blue-green crest, the torso of watery figure emerges.  It is as if the elemental sea, as if Ulmo himself surges forth to claim his bride.  I can only watch as fluid arms enfold her like a lover's and, as the wave plunges into itself, she is embraced into its hollow and is gone._

_I can only stand agape.  Still, I am rooted when the sea retreats from the shore.  The tide ebbs in an instant, yet further then it recedes, leaving only wet grey sand behind.  Slowly, I turn into the wind.  Only a faint cry, more a whimper, finds me, but I will seek out this child.  I will help her, whoever she is._

_As I walk, wet, sand chaffing my skin, stiff wind chilling me to the bone, a movement from the corner of my eye catches my attention.  In the distance, a dark line becomes visible.  It grows.  Steadily, it climbs.  Fear paralyzes me.  A great wave, a tidal wave, rushes toward me.  It crests, taller than the mallorns of Lothlorien.  But what have I to lose?_

_"What have I to lose?" I shout the question angrily.  "You have taken my love!  Now take my life and be done!"  But it does not…_

Legolas was thrust abruptly back into consciousness.  His arm fell on the empty bed next to him—it was cold.  

"Arwen?" he muttered thickly.  The dream had disturbed him deeply and he spoke her name more from a desire for her presence than from any belief that she was there.  He wanted to lay his head to her breast and hear her heartbeat, wanted to feel her warmth and softness.  He wished she were there to hold him, to stroke his hair and comfort him.  But she was not.

It had been nearly three weeks since her departure and he missed her sorely.  He had had too brief a taste of her love and it only served to whet his appetite for the honey of it.  Legolas took a deep frustrated breath, then let it out with a snarl as he heaved himself out of bed.  Moonlight spilled across the floor of the room.  The roar of the Falls of Bruinen gave no comfort.  It reminded him only of the rolling waves in his dream that robbed him of his beloved.

The stone was cool under the soles of his feet.  A light nightshirt that fell to his knees, swept softly about his form as he walked to the window.  Leaning on the sill, Legolas gazed up at the stars.  They seemed distant and cold to him—a feeling which gathered and hung upon his soul.  All the loneliness of his life centered and condensed into that moment.  He had never minded being alone.  In fact, throughout much of his life, Legolas had preferred, sought, and treasured solitude.  But at the moment, he wanted nothing less…

In Lothlorien, Arwen slept fitfully in Glorfindel's embrace.  He dozed lightly beside her, stirring occasionally to quiet her restless dreaming.  At last, she settled into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When she awoke, only a few hours later, he still warmed her bed.  Arwen rolled onto her other side and watched him sleep.  The childlike innocence that he possessed when he slept was incongruous with his clean, hawkish features.  She smiled when the already aged elf began to snore softly.  Drink and exhaustion from their earlier ordeal had consigned him to a deep and peaceful slumber that did not break when Arwen slipped her hands inside his untucked shirttail and smoothed her palm gently over the bandage that was still was wrapped around his long torso.  She nestled her head against his shoulder and hugged him close.  In his sleep, his arm tightened around her as well.  She lay awake a while longer.  Glorfindel reminded her greatly of Legolas at times.

Wan sunlight penetrated even to this heart of the forest, telling Arwen that it was early yet.  Glorfindel stirred when she disengaged herself from him.

"Unhh," he grumbled on the edge of wakefulness as Arwen crawled over him.

"Mmm, shhh," she cooed, tucking the blankets up around him and sweeping his hair back, brushing loose strands from his cheek.  Arwen padded across the cool floor planks.  She dressed quickly and quietly.  Regretfully, she touched her chest where her pendant would have rested.  She had been angry and rash when she had thrown it into the shadows, and now she missed it.

Most of the local inhabitants of the court had had a late night and many still slept.  Only a few guards, who bowed their heads to her, passed her as she made her way to her grandmother's chambers.

Haldir stood, slightly puffy eyed and grumpy looking, waiting at the tall doors to Galadriel's private apartments.  Despite his obvious discomfort, he smiled at Arwen as she approached.  Feeling better this morning, she was rather embarrassed by her earlier behavior.  She did not meet his eyes as she neared him.

"Good morning, my lady," he greeted her gently.  "I believe I have something of yours," he smiled, producing a small, tan, velvet sack.  She took his offering gladly, for she suspected the bag's contents.  Sure enough, when she opened the drawstring her necklace fell out into her hand.  The clasp had been repaired and the few small scratches that had marred its surface had been polished out.

"Thank you," she exclaimed, rushing forward to embrace him.  "Where did you find it?  How did you repair it? Thank you!"

"I found it on my way home last night.  A good friend of mine mended it, and you are most welcome," he patted her gingerly on the back.  "Now, will you accompany me?  Your grandmother awaits you in her orchard."  When they had descended to the forest floor, Arwen took the arm he offered and they made their way toward the densest heart of the wood.  It was not darker, but the light was softer.  Neither spoke as they neared Galadriel's sanctuary.  At the edge of the orchard, Haldir halted.  "Here I leave you, m'lady," he said in his quiet, respectful way and then he was gone.

Looking into the orchard, Arwen understood why her grandmother's home was called the Golden Wood.  Elanor and nephridil dotted the ground and a light like that that only the Calaquendi have ever seen radiated from all the abundance of trees and flowers.  The very air seemed alive with magic and life.

No path showed the way, but Arwen walked on confidently.  She felt as though she were being called or following a beacon in the darkness.  This feeling beckoned her to the heart of the wood.  At last, she came to a clearing, a small hollow in the terrain.  High banks flanked it on either side and, at the junction of the embankments, a little stream trickled down a rocky falls.  The pool at its foot was clear to the stony bottom.  Beside it stood a waist high stone pedestal with a wide, shallow, silver basin perched atop it.  And behind this stood Galadriel, radiant and ethereal as the first light of Creation.  In her hands she held a graceful silver pitcher full of water from the pool.

"Come," she said simply.  Arwen felt compelled to obey and moved slowly, but irresistibly forward.

"What will I see?" she asked weakly as she came beside the pillar.

"Possibilities," Galadriel answered.  And, after a pause, she added, "…and consequences.  It is fortunate that Haldir returned that to you," she said, her eyes indicating the necklace.  "My mirror could have shown you little of what you must know without it."  The simple, but pointed, reprimand told Arwen that her grandmother knew of her rather rash tantrum the previous night.  She lowered her eyes from her grandmother's penetrating, crystal blue stare.  Without another word, Galadriel emptied the pitcher into the basin.  "Behold," she commanded.

As the water stilled, Arwen's reflection cleared, but it was no longer her own face that gazed back at her—_A__ young man.  His watery image smiles up from the basin.  His wavy hair is dark and wild.  His mouth begins to form a word.  A voice, his voice I assume, sounds in my mind.  "Tinuviel"—it echoes, just as Galadriel told me.  Then, before my eyes, he ages.  White tinges his temples and beard making him seem haggard and old, but the eyes that twinkle beneath his beetle black brow are vibrant and youthful.  At his throat, he wears the sliver eagle and upon his head sits the helm and crown of Gondor.  Then he fades, leaving the water clear again._

_Next, a swan, the carved grey figurehead of one of Cirdan's magnificent ships seems about to sail from the confines of the mirror.  I am aboard with Legolas to my left and a lovely, solemn looking, ginger haired elf to my right.  My father, Galadriel, and Mithrandir all stand on deck as well, watching the shores of Middle Earth recede._

_The man I saw stands on the shore, tears staining his cheeks.  Then, he charges forward and dives into the grey-green waters and begins to swim.  The easterly breeze bears us westward, toward Valinor and still he follows.  He cannot keep pace, but still he swims and in the distance I see him slip beneath the waves.  He does not resurface.  Part of me is sad; the part of me that knows he sacrificed himself to the sea for my sake.  But this too fades._

_Imladris, my father's hall, looms before me now, ominous and threatening somehow.  It is night…no, not night.  Ash and soot burns my throat.  The sky is dark with smoke.  The forest on all sides is aflame, spewing thick black smoke that chokes out the light of day.  Orcs swarm over the white walls of Rivendell like locusts.  Their laughter is harsh and ugly.  They fight amongst themselves over what we elves have left behind.  I can feel an evil presence here, darker and fouler than any orc.  Hatred and sorrow tear at my soul, trying to possess my spirit.  It grows stronger as the flames that blaze in the trees begins to swirl and focus into the center of my view.  A maelstrom of fire whirls before me and then it becomes more.  It becomes an eye—lidless and unblinking.  It is the source of this darkness that surrounds me now.  Despair is all I can feel._

_But then, the man is beside me.  With sword in hand, he drives away the darkness by the flickering reflection of fire on his blade.  The foe is vanquished and all is black and void.  I am only aware of a single word—Estel…_

The vision released her and Arwen staggered back from the mirror, breathing hard.  Now she understood.  Estel—hope.  This man was the key to hope.  Without him, Darkness would come.  And it destroy everything she held dear.  Without her, he would die, and all hope would die with him.

"And now you understand why you must deny him," Galadriel said, her voice a powerful whisper.

"Yes," Arwen answered.  "You were right.  It will be simpler if I do not go back.  I could not bear to see his face.  And only distance will hold my resolve," she continued numbly.  Then, her eyes brightened as an idea occurred to her, "And if I left now?  If I sailed with Legolas and our child inside me to the West?  Can one cheat Destiny?" she asked, an almost pitiful desperation in her voice.

"And what cause would he have to play his own part if not for you?  What would his reason be if not love?  But, my child, the choice is yours, and yours alone," she breathed.

"May I stay in your house?  At least until my child, my daughter, is born?  Until Legolas has returned to the Greenwood?" Arwen asked, eyes to the ground as though she were ashamed.  Galadriel saw the silent tears that dropped to the earth at Arwen's feet.

"You are always welcome here.  I love you, child," Galadriel smiled slightly, but warmly as she went to her granddaughter.  "…children," she corrected herself, laying her hand on Arwen's belly and smiling more broadly.  Then, she brushed her fingers over the green stone that sparkled at the Evenstar's breast.  "We can only honor the memory of our ancestors with our own actions.  You come from a line of strength and dignity.  You do credit to it," she said softly, as was most often her way.  Together, they started back toward the city in the trees.

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AN:  I don't know why this chapter took me so long, but here it is in all its splendor.  So now we know why she HAS to ditch Legolas.  Bummer, huh?  Much more to come…Aragorn will be reappearing shortly, but Legolas has to find out about the baby still, right (possible impending smut)?  Hehe.  Write me a review!  It'll make me happy and happy writers write faster! :D           ~DR


	13. Celebrian's Choice

Destiny's Arrow

(Celebrian's Choice)

The passing months saw a wondrous metamorphosis.  What had once been little more than a tightness of her belly became a swell as Arwen's body grew to nourish and accommodate the new life she carried.  Galadriel and Celebrian smiled knowingly at each new experience that pregnancy brought the younger elf.

At last, when her condition became impossible to conceal, Arwen told her grandfather of her state and decision, knowing that no excuse for a sudden disappearance would appease him.  Despite his regret of it, Celeborn conceded the necessity of keeping her secret and agreed to do so.  He and Glorfindel, however, took great glee in teasing her as her figure continued to expand.

"Come along, dumpling," as Celeborn insisted upon calling her, "we shall all have our supper sequestered in your room this evening," he laughed after Arwen had complained about having to take her meals alone.  Supper, though, was interrupted by a small shriek from a wide eyed Arwen.

"It moved!" she laughed, placing a slender hand atop her rotund midsection.  Nearly instantaneously, four more hands came to rest on her belly as Galadriel, Celebrian, Celeborn, and Glorfindel all gathered on her side of the small table to feel for themselves.  The child did not disappoint, doing several more, what Arwen thought must have been, highly acrobatic maneuvers.

Celeborn and Glorfindel took a very paternal attitude toward the impending arrival that bordered on foolishness at times.  Glorfindel would no longer allow Arwen to rest in peace until he had sung the unborn babe a lullaby, insisting that it would improve _his_ ear for music.  

Though elves placed no higher value on sons that they did on daughters, both Glorfindel and Celeborn had firmly decided that unborn was indeed a boy.  Celebrian preferred to harbor no expectations, while Galadriel quietly maintained that Arwen, who knew it was so, would bear a daughter.  Only time, a month at most, would tell.

At last, the day of the arrival came.  When Arwen neither attended nor made any request for breakfast, Celebrian went to her daughter's quarters only to find her still in her dressing gown, pacing the room.

"Has the time come?" Celebrian asked, knowing that it had.  Arwen nodded even as she stopped in her tracks, closed her eyes, and took a few deep breaths to dull the pain as her pelvic girdle stretched a bit wider in contraction.  "I will fetch mother," Celebrian smiled.

"And grandfather and Glorfindel if they wish," Arwen added, resuming her circuit of the room.  Celebrian returned shortly with Galadriel, Celeborn, and Glorfindel at her back.  Ordinarily, only the expectant grandmother and father would have attended the birth, but Arwen's was a unique situation.  The reason for this usually minimal number became rapidly apparent.  There were simply too many people in the room.  Glorfindel, who understood the basics of childbirth but had never sired any children himself, was constantly underfoot of the other four people.  He was promptly relegated to a post by the door.  Should something be required of him, he would be notified, Galadriel curtly informed him.

Celeborn fulfilled the father's role.  He stayed close to her and supported her when her knees weakened and her body sagged under the pain of more and more frequent contractions.  She continued to walk the floor until the rate at which the contractions came made it impossible.  Then, he helped her to the large wooden high armed chair in which Galadriel herself had borne Celebrian.  He, then, took his place behind her and continued to gently remind her not to hold her breath as the birth pains became sharper.  Gradually, though, the pain that tore through her lower body as it stretched to make way for the new life became, to Arwen, little more than raw sensation.

The labor itself was short.  Before noon, Arwen held an infant elf-child to her breast.  A shock of fine red hair stuck out in odd directions from the babe's soft head.  Arwen smiled down at the daughter who dozed peacefully in her arms

Galadriel had not left Arwen's bedside all day.  She extended a long hand to smooth the child's hair.

"What will we call her?" Galadriel whispered, looking into her granddaughter's exhausted, but happy face.

"Thurinhên.  She is, after all, my secret," Arwen smiled.  But then, a look of concern settled on her face.  "Do you think her hair will turn dark?"

"No.  She will stand apart.  It is a mark of her parentage…her shame," Galadriel whispered, lowering her eyes with a deep sigh.  "It neither my place nor that of anyone else to judge you or Legolas or her for what has been in light of what must be, but it seems that the Universe refuses to let it go entirely unnoticed."

"If Nature marks her for what I cannot change, then I will change Nature's mark," Arwen said evenly after a moment's thought.  Galadriel nodded.

That evening, Galadriel sent Glorfindel into the forest to find what supplies they would need to black Thurinhên's hair.  By the morning, the babe's hair was as dark as her mother's and no one else was the wiser.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I cannot keep her, mother," Arwen told Celebrian sadly as they watched Thurinhên crawl awkwardly across the floor.  "Haldir, I know, is suspicious and while he is trustworthy, others may not be so.  What will I do?  Though I know they love her, grandmother and grandfather no longer have patience for children.  You and father cannot keep her.  What could you tell him that he would believe?" Arwen sighed heavily.  "And I?  I cannot keep her.  If Legolas discovered…"

"She will be mine," Glorfindel answered, sweeping the babe up into his arms.  She gurgled and grinned toothlessly at him.  Glorfindel held her high in the air and grinned back at her.  He wrinkled his nose and nuzzled it against Thurinhên's.

"You cannot raise a child alone, Glorfindel.  The way of your life would not permit it," Celebrian protested.  "And besides, how did you beget a child with no mate? No mother for it?"

"We will say her mother was a maid in Galadriel's service and tell that died giving her to me," Glorfindel returned.

"And what of your life?  Would you, could you give up your wild, roaming ways for her?  How will you raise her?  Hunting and running grueling, dangerous errands for my father is too perilous a life for such a one as young as she.  How could you be a father to her?" Arwen argued.  There was a long pause.  Glorfindel regarded the soft, pink creature who cooed and burbled up at him as he cradled her against his chest.  She felt warm and delicate in his arms.  The love that he felt for her was stronger than anything he had ever experienced before.  It was deeper than the love he bore his lord and lady, more profound even than his love for Arwen.  Warmth, like that of a summer's day filled his heart until he thought it would burst.  It was wonderful, humbling, and terrifying—this love that he felt awash with.  _This is what it means to be a father.  I watched her come into the world.  I am her father._

"I am her father," he said aloud.  Both women looked at him, puzzled.  "I would lay down my life for her as I would for you, either of you.  I will willingly lay down the life I have led and begin anew as her father," he said, never meeting their shocked eyes.  "I will be your father," he whispered to Thurinhên.  "Yes," he said decisively, finally facing them, still holding the squirming infant, "this is how it must be.  I will unstring my bow, sheathe my sword, and stable my horse."

"I cannot ask that of you," Arwen objected further.

"Why must you be so stubborn?  Always, you fight me," he laughed.  To Arwen he sounded weary.  _Perhaps he is, at last, prepared to reconcile his impulsive ways and live a quiet life—_she thought.  "Will you not see that this is the only way?"  There was another long, somewhat uncomfortable pause.

"Not the _only way," Celebrian said at last.  Glorfindel raised a curious eyebrow.  Willing as he was to fulfill his promise, such a change frightened him.  More than staring down the most lethal adversary, taking absolute responsibility for another, for a child so young, was a daunting prospect.  Celebrian spoke again, "Glorfindel will bring Thurinhên and ride with me back to Rivendell.  We will tell Elrond the fiction of the serving maid-mother.  Then I will take her to the West with me."  Her pronouncement left both Glorfindel and Arwen in stunned silence._

"The West?  Why would you go there, mother?  Father is not ready to depart," Arwen questioned uneasily.

"I am going the Grey Havens, and I will cross the sea.  Arwen, I am weary.  The world is changed for me.  There is so much hurt, such sadness.  Even here, in the heart of my homeland, I feel it.  Not even the magic of this place brings joy to my heart.  Not even…," Celebrian paused as though the thought pained her, "not even the thought of my lord and husband, your father can abate this darkness that has descended upon me."

"But why, mother?" Arwen asked, a note of pleading in her voice.  "Why when I have borne you your first grandchild?  Surely that…," she trailed off.

"Yes.  Yes she, and you, and all that I love are my joys.  But even that happiness is overshadowed by my torment.  Monsters lurk in the shadows of my mind.  They haunt my dreams," Celebrian's hand went to her shoulder and neck.  "Orc poison has dulled my vision of the world, but my true misery is the knowledge that such horrors can exist in this land.  I do not wish to remain in a place where something so beautiful and fine as an elf can be twisted, perverted into something as vile, foul, and hateful as a goblin.  No soul should loathe itself as theirs do.  They resent us, true.  We are as they were, a reminder of what was stolen from them.  And they hate themselves.  They despise what they have become but have neither the power to change nor the courage to end their miserable existence.  They do not know where their souls will go when their tortured forms cease to be.  They wonder if they have souls at all anymore.

I must depart, you see?  I cannot remain because I have been poisoned, infected with this Darkness that I cannot fight.  The longer I remain the stronger I feel it, the heavier it weighs on my soul.  And, now, only the light of Valinor, I fear, will serve to immolate such a canker from my spirit.  I must go.  I will take Thurinhên with me if you wish it," Celebrian finally concluded.

Arwen was unable to speak.  Glorfindel was also silent.  Neither could find any fault with her argument and they pitied her.  The quiet grew long and uncomfortable until, at last, Thurinhên began to cry for her mother.  Still without a word, Glorfindel deposited the babe in her mother's arms.  Arwen opened her robe a bit to expose a full white breast.  The child quieted easily as she began to suckle and, finally, Arwen spoke.

"I would have you take her, but wait until summer, until she is weaned," she spoke softly as she watched Thurinhên's eyelids droop with sleepiness and contentment.  "I do not relish being separated from her, but I thought I might at least keep you a while longer," Arwen continued.  "I will remain here.  Forever.  And I shall never see you after.  Either of you," Arwen looked up at her mother once more, holding back the tears that welled in her eyes.  "I love you," she whispered, voice quavering.

"And I love you, my girl," Celebrian answered.  Their parting was spoken of no more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Traveling with an infant made the journey back to Rivendell an even more delicate proposition than journeying to Lothlorien with two women had been.  All agreed that another pass through the mountains would be dangerous and foolhardy.  Though it would be a much longer road, Celebrian and Glorfindel decided on a route that would take them south, through Rohan.  Thankfully, the return trip passed without incident.

Even when they neared home, the travelers sent no word ahead of their arrival, preferring to surprise the household.

Elrond's heart leapt at the sight of his approaching wife.  Undignified as it was, the Lord of Imladris ran to meet them in only his dressing gown.  Without a word, he lifted Celebrian down from her steed, swept her into his arms, and caught her mouth in a long, loving kiss.

"How I have missed you, wife!" Elrond whispered affectionately into her ear as he breathed in her intoxicating scent—sweet nephridil with the spice of crushed mallorn leaves.  It was always strongest after she visited the home of her youth.  He had missed her presence terribly.  He had longed to feel her warmth and the shape of her body beside him.  But something about her was different now—colder, distant.  At the moment, though, Elrond did not concern himself with fleeting worries.  He was only glad to see her, to hold her again.

"And I, you," Celebrian answered earnestly.  Though the thought and memory of her distant husband had given little comfort in Lorien, his presence, his closeness warmed the heart that she had felt growing cold.

Glorfindel looked on in silence.  Thurinhên slept quietly, concealed and cradled in a sling across his chest.  Carefully, he dismounted and went to greet Elrond.  The elf lord eyed his friend's bulging chest curiously.

"What do you carry, Glorfindel, that you bear as a babe?" Elrond asked, arching a curious brow.  The blonde elf smiled brightly and leaned forward to show his comrade Thurinhên's slumbering profile as she cozied up against his tunic.  Elrond's eyes widened.  It had been an exceedingly long time since he had seen one of his own kind so young.  "Whose is she?  What is her name?" he asked.  Paternal tenderness colored his tone as he extended a long hand to stroke her soft, black head.

"She is mine," Glorfindel answered softly, "and her name is Thurinhên."  He grinned broadly at the look of utter shock on Elrond's face.  Questions flooded against the dam of the elf lord's manners and tact.  Glorfindel could see it in his eyes.  "Her mother was a serving maid of Galadriel's whom I have known for many centuries.  We begat her after the celebration on the night of our arrival.  My new wife died giving her to me," Glorfindel explained sadly.  Ever the consummate actor, he seemed so absolutely genuine that not even Elrond, perceptive as he was, doubted his performance for a moment.

"And who will care for her now?  Surely, you cannot," Elrond questioned.  Celebrian squeezed his hand tighter.  When he looked to her, her smile answered him.  "You?" his eyes widened, "Us?"

"I would speak with you privately, husband," said she.  Her husband's stomach lurched.  The last time she had used those words to request a private audience, Arwen had been the happy result.

"Of course," he monotoned, attempting to maintain his composure.  "Glorfindel," he began, not moving his gaze from his wife as he scanned for any sign that would confirm his suspicion.  Finding none, he continued, "your quarters are as you left them.  Will you require an additional bed for Thurinhên?"  Celebrian directed and inquisitive look at Glorfindel, ignoring her husband's fixed stare.

"I do not wish to trouble you, my lord.  She will sleep soundly next to my heart, thank you," smiled the elf.

Together, the four made their way indoors.  Glorfindel excused himself to the kitchens in search of a suitable meal for Thurinhên who had woken and begun, rather noisily, to demand her breakfast, leaving his lord and lady alone in the corridor.  Accepting his arm, Celebrian followed her husband toward their shared chamber.

"Now that you have my undivided attention, my dear, was there something you wished to discuss, or were you making a request best answered behind closed doors?" inquired the Lord of Rivendell with a bemused sort of half smile.  Celebrian laughed a bit in spite of herself at his feeble attempt at subtlety.  _Perhaps a final encounter before I depart would ease the blow.  Perhaps it would do us both good—she thought._

            "Both, my love," she whispered.

            "Then let us discuss first.  I do not wish worry and concern to overshadow…," Celebrian did not allow him to finish.  His lips, she captured in a tender kiss.  Underneath the tenderness, though, Elrond sensed an urgency so strong that it bordered on desperation.  It excited him.  After a long moment, she released him, stepping back to look deeply into his stormy grey eyes.  When she spoke, her voice was husky with desire.

            "No more words, now.  Only feeling.  Take me in your arms, husband, and make love to me as though it is the last time."  It was not a command, but a request, a plea.  Elrond understood, and great tears welled up in his eyes.  Though they stung, he would not let them fall.

            "This will not be our final meeting, dearest," he whispered, speaking ever more softly for fear his voice would break.  "Oh, but how I shall miss you," the words escaping him in a long sigh.  He kissed his wife lightly, lifted her into his arms, and bore her to their bed.

Many hours passed as they made love.  As Celebrian had instructed, not a word was spoken.  He explored her body as he had in their youth; touching, caressing, finding new wonder in each of her familiar curves.  She, likewise, celebrated their union with adoring hands, grateful lips, a joyful body, and an unburdened soul—if only for the span of their all too brief encounter.

As Celebrian lay in Elrond's protective embrace, catching her breath and pleasantly drowsy, she felt alive in a way that she hadn't since the fateful journey over the Misty Mountains.  He listened silently as she recounted the tale of their journey, the battle with the orcs, Glorfindel's imaginary mate, Thurinhên's birth, and her own decision to depart for the Grey Havens with the child.  When, finally, she finished, Elrond kissed her forehead and voiced the only thought that came to mind,

"I love you," he said quietly, smoothing his wife's silver-blonde hair back from her brow that glowed with fine perspiration in the soft light of afternoon.

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AN:  Whew!  Done with this frigging chapter at last!  Forgive typos and stupid things, I'll fix 'em later…OK, so I sorta wimped out on the Elrond/Celebrian smut.  I just wasn't feelin' it.  I believe that Legolas may be feeling a little frisky in the near future, however ;).  I am trying desperately to get back to Aragorn without rushing through this.  I promise, I'm a-gettin' there.  If any good, sweet wonderful readers want to leave me reviews it would make me exceedingly happy!           ~DR


	14. Departure

Destiny's Arrow

(Departure and Discovery)

_Part One- Departure_

Though all tried to make merry on the journey, it was a generally morose party that accompanied Celebrian and Thurinhên through the Shire and North country as they made their way to the Grey Havens.  Círdan and a band of other Telleri greeted Elrond and his company solemnly at the shore where the grey figurehead of a swan arched its long, graceful neck from the prow of the small ship that rocked gently in the water.  No tears were shed as Celebrian bid, first Glorfindel, then her sons, and finally her husband farewell with kisses, kind words of advice, and promises that they would all meet again on the fairer shore of Valinor.

Despite her comfort, Elrond felt as though his heart would cease to beat without her.  She had sustained and supported him through so many trials and hardships.  She had brought his children into the world.  During her short sojourns to Lorien, he had hungered for her return.  And now without her, he felt that he would surely wither in starvation.

Neither Elladan nor Elrohir would look their mother in the face.  They felt abandoned.  Her decision had struck them completely off guard.  Though they were grown, she was still so much a part of who they had become.   Her quiet guidance had played a more instrumental role in molding their identities than they had, until the news of her decision, realized.  _Who will scold us when we come to supper unwashed?  Who else will know all our scars?—_Elrohir wondered.  _Who will stay by our bedsides when we are ill or injured?  How will any of us get along without her?—_mused Elladan.

Glorfindel, alone, mourned Thurinhên's passage.  He grieved for Elrond's ignorance to her true identity—for the fact that he was losing his grandchild and did not know it.  And, in small part, he pitied Legolas who would _never know of his own daughter.  He would miss Celebrian, but he wished more than anything that he could watch Thurinhên grow into the lovely young elf he knew she would become.  He truly felt as a father giving up his only offspring._

A melancholy sort of peace descended upon the elves left standing on the shore.  The stern of the boat receded, quickly disappearing into the morning mist that rose thick from the glassy surface of the water.  The tide was ebbing, and on it went the Lady of Imladris and a secret whose discovery could have threatened the future of the free lands of Middle-earth.

When they arrived home, the halls of the Last Homely House seemed empty and lifeless in their mistress's absence.  Supper was a quiet, rather dull affair that evening.  Conversation was sparse and stilted at best and most left the dining room as soon as they had eaten.  Elrond remained at the head of the table for the sake of hospitality.  Glorfindel remained at his side until all the others departed.

"Go to bed, Glorfindel.  Though I thank you, you do not need to keep me company," Elrond said distantly.

"Are you certain?" asked the yellow haired elf.  "I know that I cannot be the companion your lady would, but if you desire the presence of another, I will stay."

"No, my friend.  Thank you, but I wish to be alone now," returned the darker elf, still not removing himself entirely from his thoughts.  "Besides, I believe that Legolas is waiting to speak to you outside."  A scowl pulled at Glorfindel's features as he wondered with distaste what the Prince of Mirkwood might ask of him.  Silently, he bowed his head to his friend, and stood to leave.

Legolas, who had offered his services to Elrond in Glorfindel's absence, did, indeed, lurk quietly in the shadows.  Glorfindel regarded him coldly as he stepped out onto the deeply shaded veranda.

"What do you want?" Glorfindel inquired shortly.

"I am pleased to find you as genial as ever.  Let us make no pretense of fondness for one another, then…"

"Spare me your fine words, dear prince.  What would you have of me?"

"Walk with me.  I wish to speak privately," said Legolas haughtily, his eyes flickering toward the doorway through which Elrond still sat, brooding, at the long table.  The elder elf, wearily motioned for the younger to lead the way, delighting in the knowledge that his gesture irritated the black haired prince.  Glorfindel's eyes sparkled at the exasperation that glinted in Legolas's frosty grey glare and at the flush that colored the tips of his pointed ears.  A snarl tickled the back of Legolas's throat.  He stifled it.  He knew that the fairer elf could see his frustration and did not wish to give him the satisfaction of hearing it as well.  The prince took a wide berth of Glorfindel as he led the way toward the gates of Imladris.  They passed under the stone arch and walked until they came to a birch grove well out of earshot of Rivendell.  Then, Legolas turned, his impassive features awash with silvery moonlight that shone on his black hair and caught eerily in his pale eyes.  "Why did she go to Lorien and when will she return?" asked the elf tersely.

"That is her affair and none of your concern, boy.  Now, if I may have his _highness'_ leave…," Glorfindel spoke mockingly as he made to leave.  Before he could turn his back, though, the younger elf's strong hand darted out and took a fistful of his tunic, pulling him so close that their noses almost touched.  Legolas's face was twisted with anger.  Likewise, Glorfindel was shocked and incensed at the younger elf's audacity.  "Unhand me, _boy," the elf lord spat._

"Tell me," Legolas whispered fiercely.

"She left to be free of you and I suspect she will not return until you leave," growled Glorfindel, his hands balled into fists at his sides.  Legolas loosened his grip a little, his expression softening as he considered what the other elf had said.

"I do not believe you," he snarled, anger sharpening his features once more.  "Are you so envious our love?  Are you so jealous that she took me to her bed instead of you that you would shame yourself, and her, with such a lie?" the prince finished, pushing Glorfindel forcefully away as he released his coat.

"I care not for her bed.  I love her.  Are _you_ so jealous that she took _me_ into her heart and held you always at arm's length that you would wrong her, and me, with your selfish desires?" hissed the elder.  Legolas was still and silent, momentarily dumbstruck by Glorfindel's words—_Surely__ his words are not hers.  Surely she knows how I love her.  My own desires have always been second to her own.  That is as it should be.  Had I demanded anything of her, it would have been only that we seal our bond in formal marriage. And he, the prideful hypocrite…_

"'Selfish desires'?  Who are you to condemn selfish desires—_you_?  One who would not set aside his _desires in order to keep his own bastard child rather than besetting his responsibility upon his mistress and friend?" Legolas's voice was soft, but his tone was hard—contemptuous and hateful._

"Be SILENT!" roared Glorfindel.  Again, Legolas was stunned silent.  "You do not know…," he began, shaking with fury, "You do not know what you say or who you wrong with your words—be _silent_."

"My apologies.  I meant no offense to the child.  She is innocent.  I mean only to insult you and your whore…"  Almost quicker than Legolas could see, and certainly quicker than he could defend, Glorfindel's fist collided with his jaw.  The tremendous force of the blow snapped the dark elf's head to the side and knocked him off balance enough to send him sprawling on his back.  Legolas opened his mouth to curse the elf that towered over him, fists still clenched, but the words were replaced by an inarticulate grunt as pain flared near his ear.  He shut his eyes tighter, wading through the pain of opening his mouth wider and shifting his jaw to the left until, with an audible pop, it found its proper articulation once more.

"Let that be a lesson.  Speak in ignorance and you shall make yourself a fool.  Know what you say before you let your tongue flap idly with insults, or next time you cross my path, I will not be so _genial_," and with that, Glorfindel turned, leaving the Thranduil's son bruised and bitter in the stand of birches, and made his way back toward Imladris.

Legolas pressed his palm to his cheek.  The skin was feverishly hot beneath his fingers and he could already feel the swelling beginning.  Sitting amongst the composting leaves of the previous fall, cradling his jaw, watching Glorfindel stalk off, Legolas knew that his verbal assault had been childish and uncalled for in its severity.  But in truth, though he was loath to admit it, Glorfindel had hit the mark.

Though he and Arwen were One in spirit, Legolas sensed that she had always withheld a part of herself from him.  Even in their most intimate moments, when both their souls lay bare, she was somehow reserved.  He had felt it most on the day she left for the Golden Wood.

Everything about her had seemed indescribably, subtly, yet strongly different at their last meeting.  When she greeted him on the bridge that late afternoon, she had been more radiantly beautiful than he had ever before seen her.  _Perhaps it was only the warmth of sunset that lingered in her eyes and glowed on her skin—he thought.  But, then, he remembered how she had touched his face, her fingertips gliding over his skin as she would have skimmed them over the surface of a still pond, sending ripples of joy through his being.  In the deep shadows of night, where only moonlight had traced the contours of both their bodies that moved as one, her scent, her taste had enflamed him with both their familiarity and their freshness.  She had been new and alive.  Yet still she had held back._

Something—a revelation, he imagined, danced just beyond his grasp somewhere between his recollection of the last night he had spent with Arwen and Glorfindel's angry words, but the pain, that shot from his jaw and ricocheted about the inside his skull in the form of a splitting headache, was overpowering his ability to think clearly, and the conclusion he knew he should be able to reach, refused to solidify.  _Very well—he decided at length—__If__ she will not come to me, then I will go to her.  Enough of these cursed doubts and questions and half-truths of Glorfindel's.  I will go to her.  Legolas stood slowly, waited for the dizziness to subside, and marched swiftly back to Rivendell._

Once within the walls, he discreetly woke a scullery maid and a young elf who tended the stables.  The maid, he sent to the kitchens to procure and pack foodstuffs for his journey.  The lad, he sent to fetch, feed, water, and tack his horse.  The prince himself went to his quarters, packed his few belongings and quickly scrawled a note to Elrond and one to his father, Thranduil, in Greenwood:

_Lord Elrond Peredhil—_

_First, my apologies for my abrupt departure, but my business cannot be delayed._

_Your hospitality is of well deserved fame and it has been my honor and privilege to dwell here in Imladris as your guest.  My poor service to you is ill thanks for your generosity, but I am at your disposal if ever you have need of me._

_I wish you and your family every happiness in this time of sadness for us all.  Your Lady is a fine and goodly elf.  I look forward to the day when we all shall meet on the far shore._

_And now, if I may impose on your good will only a little further, I would ask two small favors of you. Will you, first, give your daughter my regards when she returns?  I have come to enjoy her company during my visits and, though your house is indeed lovely, I find it lacking when she is gone.  Second, I would have the enclosed message relayed to my father if you can spare a messenger._

_Again, many thanks and best wishes._

_Namarie__—_

_Legolas Greenleaf; Son of Thranduil, King of the Silvan Elves of __Greenwood__ the Great_

The second note read:

_Father—_

_I am gone to the woods or Lothlorien.  I do not know how long the journey will take or how long I will stay.  I go to find my love and Lady, Arwen.  She did not return with her mother and their escort and I must know the reason why.  I fear what will come of our meeting, but I am compelled to go._

_Know that I am well.  I will be home as soon as circumstance permits._

_All my love—_

_Legolas_

Just as he finished his spidery signature, a tentative knock sounded on the heavy door of his chamber.

"A moment," he answered the knock.  Neatly, he folded the notes.  With the candle that lit his writing desk, Legolas melted the tip of a pillar of red wax he'd found in one of the drawers.  He sealed the letter to his father with personal crest, and, then, answered the door.

On the threshold stood the drowsy girl with a cleverly packed knapsack of simple food items and a small silver canteen of the cordial of Imladris in one hand, and in the other a sweating leathern flask of frigid water.  Legolas took the bag gratefully, but raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the young elf as she offered him the cold bottle.

"You should put this on your jaw as long as it stays cold," she yawned.  "It will help with the swelling," she finished shyly, indicating his rapidly blackening and already swollen jaw.

"Thank you, lady," he smiled warmly, her thoughtfulness, momentarily, washing away his foul humor.  "Would you be so kind as take one to lord Glorfindel's quarters as well, compliments of me?  His poor knuckles will be in sore need as well, I imagine," said Legolas, half amused, half bitter.  Then he put his finger to his lips, "It will be our secret."  The young maid blushed furiously as the prince bowed his head to her and made for the stables.  Before either of them had taken three steps, though, he turned and stopped her again.  "And one more thing, my dear—would you please see that Lord Elrond receives these in the morning?"

"O-Of course, my lord," she stammered a little, flattered by his impeccable manners.  _It will be our secret—with those simple words, Legolas had ensured that she would not breath a word of his ruined jaw or Glorfindel's bruised knuckles to anyone._

Thranduil's son jogged silently through the halls of Rivendell, and out to the stables where his horse waited, still munching contentedly with a feedbag over its muzzle.  As he waited for his mount to finish its meal, he packed his saddlebags and checked the animal's hooves.

The full moon was high in the sky when Legolas thanked the boy and rode into the humid, summer night.

-----------------------------------------

AN:  I realize if it had occurred to me sooner to split this chapter as I have, I could have posted sooner.  Please hang onto those olives…don't pelt me with them.  I'm sorry.  The smut SHOULD be along shortly.  REVIEW!                   ~DR

AN2: 9/28/02—I'm so bad.  I have been completely slack in writing and posting.  Here's what's finished to date…I thought if I had it all posted again, it might give me the kick in the butt I needed.  We'll see, I suppose.  Thank you all for your support.         ~DR


	15. Discovery

Trine: Formerly Destiny's Arrow

(Departure and Discovery)

_Part Two- Discovery_

Near the heart of the forest, the river Nimrodel was little more than a deep stream.  The chilly waters flowed briskly, babbling merrily as they tumbled over large, sporadic stones that littered the riverbed.  A warm breeze rippled through the ceiling of foliage above Arwen's head as she sat on the bank.

The afternoon was hot and sultry.  Fine sweat beaded on her ageless skin—on her upper lip, in the small of her back, behind her knees, beneath her breasts, and in all the other delicate places of the female body.  Though her dress fell loosely about her, where the material brushed her skin, it clung uncomfortably.

The elf worked nimbly to free her hair from its many braids and plaits.  Once loose, she began to carefully comb the knots out of her long dark tresses with her fingers.  She gently massaged her scalp, taking her time as she basked in the few bright rays of sunlight that found their way through the dense leaves.  At last, she let all her wavy mane tumble down her back.  It fell, soft, to her hips.

Slowly, she stood.  Closing her eyes, immersing herself in the symphony of rustling leaves, rushing water, and chirping insects around her, Arwen gathered her skirts up about her knees and let the cool water run over her toes as it lapped the pebbly shore in its hurry to join Anduin.  She waded up to her knees, stopping when goosebumps prickled her flesh.  Eyes still shut, she lifted her skirts higher, and removed her gown, tossing it back on the bank before she dove into the deeper channel of the stream.  Pleasantly chill, the water enveloped her.  She allowed the current to carry her lazily downstream a piece.  

Her mind wandered, like the current, indolently.  Though the music of Lorien was pleasant enough, Arwen longed only for Thurinhên's bright, innocent laughter or even her needful cry to fill her ears.  Though her eyes welcomed the emerald and golden veined translucence of mallorn leaves above her, she would have paid dearly for the pleasure of laying eyes on Legolas's inky hair and stormy eyes just once more…

Legolas left his horse when he was close enough to catch her scent on the wind, as he would have, a deer's._  A hunt_—he grinned to himself as he remembered their first meeting.  He stalked swiftly, soundlessly along the moist, mossy ground by the river.  As he neared her, his breath grew short, not from exertion, but with the memory of their first night together.  Her scent was strong, now.  It reminded his mouth of her taste, and his skin of her touch.  The thrill of the hunt, the anticipation of the prize that awaited him drove him forward apace.  Finally, he spied her, floating, white skin bare, like a fallen flower on the water.  

He remained concealed behind the trunk of the great tree as he quickly undressed, leaving clothes strewn over the ground in disarray.  Keeping a furtive eye on his prey, Legolas waited until she ducked beneath the water to swim back upstream.

Stealthily, he crept into the water.  He kept to the shelter of the rocks in the shallows as he advanced slowly behind her.  As Legolas watched, Arwen stepped out onto the bank and began to search the pockets of her rumpled dress for the lump of yellowish soap that she had brought with which to bathe.

His sharp eyes narrowed.  Her form, while still graceful and beautiful in his eyes, was fuller, rounder, softer than it had been the last time he'd seen her unclothed.  This was not the slender young nymph who he had wooed and bedded amongst the limbs of a Greenwood elm, but a voluptuous woman, and he rejoiced in the opportunity to learn and experience her anew.

Nimrodel's whispering was enough to mask his sound as he glided, smoothly as any serpent, through the rippling water, toward Arwen.  Muscle and sinew drew taut as he neared her.  Legolas's quarry went on rummaging, unaware of he, the hunter.  This time, though, he would not wait to be discovered.  Quick and elegant as a striking snake, he sprang forward.

Long fingers were the last thing Arwen saw before darkness replaced her vision.  A light hand rested suddenly at her waist.  Panic gripped her heart, but only for an instant.  Pure, visceral, instinctual fear froze her flesh and blood colder than icy Nimrodel—until she recognized the rough calluses of a bowstring on the fingers of the right hand that crept like scorching flame, smearing beaded water over her skin, down from her waist to her hip.

"Le…?"

"Shhh," he whispered, his lips almost touching her ear.  Still covering her eyes, Legolas twined his fingers in the dripping locks that hung lank between her shoulder blades.  Carefully, he placed all her mass of hair over her shoulder, leaving her back naked.

The sun had blazed its highest fiery path twice since he had last seen her.  Each of the twenty times the moon had shown all of its silver face, Legolas had wished only to hold her, to feel her presence once more.  In the autumn and winter, when he had felt he would fade and pass, as summer's green turns to autumn's gold and vermillion, and, finally, gives way to stark shades of grey in winter—then, he had needed her to remind him that he lived, to reassure him that spring would find them again.

But so much she had borne.  So much had changed for Arwen.  In dreams, this moment had appeared, to her, little more than a hazy improbability.  Many an afternoon had she passed, wandering solitary along the paths below Caras Galadhon, wondering how she would ever face him again.  Secretly, selfishly, she had desired this meeting; but also, she had dreaded it.  As the shape of the body at her back told Arwen that it was Legolas behind her, she knew that familiarity with the feel of her shape would betray to him the change in her own body—seeing a thunderhead in the distance lends time to seek shelter, but not power to still the storm.  Arwen had kept Galadriel's Harbinger, but she had not worn it since its true purpose had been revealed to her.  Now, she cursed her weakness as the words to stop his advances were silenced before they could be spoken by the sparks that flew wildly, low in her belly, tinder beneath his flinty touch.  Slowly, Legolas maneuvered her, blind, back into the stream, keeping his back to the current.  Weightless in the water, he pulled her back onto his lap.

"Nimrodel runs cold these days," Arwen observed pointedly.  His erection felt rather smaller than usual as it pressed, low, against her back, "Would you not agree, beloved?"  She vainly hoped that the jesting, feeble insult would be enough to put him off.  Legolas only chuckled.  He pulled her tightly to his chest to show that his, still considerable, size was quickly becoming less diminished as his passionate blood rushed with desire.

Letting one hand fall from her eyes and the other creep up from her hip, Legolas brushed his fingertips lightly over the rigid nubs of her nipples.  She smiled.  It was this, this tenderness that she had missed so sorely.  The creamy skin of her shoulder twitched when his warm lips touched it in an airy kiss.  Lightly, he rested his chin on her shoulder.

"I would," he purred, his voice a silken whisper.  Then, he began to massage the cold-blanched areolae more firmly, teasing and caressing with his clever fingers until she moaned softly, a mix of pleasure in his touches and pain from the tension of her delicate flesh.

Then, his hands slipped below the turbulent surface of the water and settled on her thighs.  With a long, deep sigh he settled against her.  He eagerly breathed in the earthy smell of her as his cheek rested on the damp skin of her back.  For a long time he remained that way, rubbing his palms up and down the length of her long, smooth thighs.  She allowed it, but did not encourage him.

"Let us not bathe yet," he whispered hoarsely.  Arwen solemnly nodded.  Slowly, the bank passed on either side as Legolas relaxed and let the current carry them downstream, only touching his feet to the rocky bottom enough to keep them afloat.

Cresting a bend in the river, Legolas's horse came into view.  The magnificent, silver dappled animal grazed contentedly on the tender shoots and white flowers of late blooming neprhidil, slack reins dragging the ground.

"Wait here," Legolas whispered once more.  He let her slip from his lap and bounded up the bank.  Arwen smiled sadly in admiration of the man she was forced to forsake.  Water streamed from his saturated hair, down his back in a twisting rivulet.  Beads of moisture glistened on his clear skin like diamonds on olive tinted linen.  Her prince was just as she remembered him.  The midday sun that streamed into the clearing cast sharp shadows that accentuated the muscular lines of his body as he moved.  He was unchanged.  And she?  She was so different and could hide it no longer.

From his saddle bag, Legolas retrieved his bedroll.  He spread the soft, but utilitarian blanket on the ground in the clearing.  Feline movements carried him back to the water's edge.  He beckoned her to come to him.  Arwen, though, could not move.

"No, Legolas.  I cannot," she muttered irresolutely.  Her eyes fell to the water's surface.

"Let me hold you as I once did, beloved.  We have been apart only for a breath of our lives, but it has been too long.  Come to me," he coaxed, advancing into the rippling current, holding his arms wide.

"I cannot, prince," murmured Arwen again.  Her rebuff unnerved him.  It was certainly not the greeting he had expected.  And a nagging fear settled like ice in the pit of his stomach as he advanced further into the stream.

"Prince?  Why do you address me so formal?  I stand before you naked as I came into this world, offering you all that I have, and you would refuse me?  I do not understand you.  Come and lie with me a while," he said, more commandingly than before.

"I cannot.  I desire none of your offerings," she answered.  Her tone was haughty and imperious, her gaze firm.__

"Cannot?" he questioned, suspicion in his voice.  "Cannot?  Or will not?"  The prince's voice was sharp, almost accusing.  Glorfindel's voice rang in his ears—_Always__ at arm's length.  If, truly, she stayed to avoid him, he would know it now.  "Will you not lie in my arms once more, my lady?  Do you deny the embrace of your lover and husband by our traditions?"_

            "Will you trust me in this?  Trust my love for you, and let me keep my confidence?"

            "Cannot, or will not?" Legolas repeated, the phrase turning cold.  Arwen only returned his chilling stare.  "Is there another?"  Silence.  "Glorfindel, perhaps?"  On his trip, Legolas had had much time to formulate many conclusions based on his confrontation with Glorfindel.  Now confronted with an unwilling Arwen, this was the one he leaped to.

"Glor…?"           

"Did he come crawling to your bedside?  Groveling?  Begging like a starved hound?  Is that what you hide?" he spat.

"Legolas, n…"

"Or did you let him catch you—coy face belying willing body—as you ensnared me?  Was it _you who bore his bastard child?" _

"ENOUGH!" Arwen shouted.  Then, before she could stop herself, the words she had so longed to speak came pouring from her lips in a torrent.  "When you arrived in Rivendell, I carried your child inside me, and I thanked my good fortune.  When I left, I did so out of necessity, and I mourned our parting.  Each day, as I felt the child—_our_ child—growing in my womb, my soul wept that it must be secret from you.

But you come too late.  She is gone, and every day that I am apart from her—every day that I have been apart from you—has rent my heart.  I love you.  And I would have spared you the burden, the pain of knowing.  I bore _your child.  __Yours, Legolas.  In silence, I have suffered while you dwelt in ignorance, in peace.  And now you hurl simple minded accusations of faithlessness at me, but it is _you_ who is faithless, Legolas.  It is __you who has betrayed our bond, sullied our love with your mistrust.  You shame yourself and me."_

Arwen's final pronouncement was met with silence.  Legolas stood stunned, waist deep in the cool water.

"My child?" he asked, shocked and unbelieving.

"Yes, Legolas—yours," answered she, still angry, still furious with him.  "Only you, beloved.  It has always been only you.  I love Glorfindel.  I love him as a father, a brother, and a friend, but he has never…loved me as you have."

"You have borne _me_ a child?"  Legolas was enchanted with the idea.  He was a father.  This woman who he loved had nurtured the seed he had planted within her womb into a life.  He advanced, slowly at first.  Arwen refused to meet his eyes.  She stared fiercely at the roiling surface of Nimrodel as Legolas tangled his long fingers in her hair.  Gently, he tilted her head back.  As he did so, she closed her eyes, unwilling to see the pride of fatherhood in his expression.  But though she did not look into his face, she felt him drawing nearer, felt his breath—warm, moist, sweet on her lips.

Legolas let his eyes flutter closed as his body settled against hers.  He felt himself falling, soul-first, into this kiss that he had anticipated and yearned for since Arwen had left him two years before.  But then, he felt her fingertips against his lips, keeping him away, denying the chance to breathe her sweet breath.  Her soft voice met his ears, pleading.

"No, Legolas, I cannot," she whispered, opening her eyes at last.  "Please do not ask this of me.  Anything but this," her voice, her look implored him.  The black haired prince released her abruptly, almost roughly and she stumbled a little before finding her footing.

"If you truly loved me, you would not deny me the right of a husband," Legolas muttered darkly.  Her eyes blazed.

"If _you_ loved _me, you would let it be.  You would respect and honor my wishes," snapped Arwen in reply.  Glaring, the other elf did not answer her.  Silently, he agreed.  He knew that he had no right to demand anything from her.  "But know, beloved, that I __do love you.  I wish that I could give you all that you desire and all that you deserve, for I do not doubt that your love for me has never faltered.  Neither has mine for you."_

"You have borne me a child..."

"A daughter," she interrupted, "Thurinhên."  Legolas scowled a little at the name.

"And together, we have made a daughter.  She is the fruit of my love for you and yours for me—our love has brought new life into the world.  Should we not nurture it together as mother and father—husband and wife.  For half a millennium, I have worshipped at your feet.  I stand prostrate, naked before you now.  As I am your lover—your husband; so be my wife.  Come with me and live as my wife—Prince and Princess of Greenwood.  We will leave tomorrow with our daughter and in two weeks time, we will celebrate our homecoming in my father's halls."

"No, Legolas, we will not.  Thurinhên is gone.  _She was the child Glorfindel brought home to Rivendell—the child who went with my mother to the West.  Thurinhên—my secret from you.  You were not meant to know of her birth…and I cannot go with you.  I will not be your wife nor your princess."  She looked away. "Go home to your father, Legolas.  Find another, for I am dead to you.  I release you from our bond."_

"Shall I never see you more?" his voice faltered a little.

"I cannot promise that our paths will never cross again, but if we should meet—I fear it can only pain you," her eyes were full of sorrow as she spoke, but no tears fell.  All her tears for him had been shed.  Her destiny's road forked before her and she found herself climbing the steep and rocky path that she had so vehemently protested.  It was the right way, she knew, now that she was faced with the decision.  She had made her choice, and now the din of questions, contradictions and doubts that had plagued her was, at last, silenced.

For a moment, only Nimrodel spoke as it babbled along its merry way.  Then, again she spoke—in a whisper now.  "I shall miss you…"

Legolas nodded once, then turned his back on her.  He said nothing as he slowly widened the distance between them, returning to his mount.

"Legolas, wait," called Arwen after him, wading toward the bank where he stood.  Turning to face her, his gaze was empty, indifferent.  When she reached him, she opened her mouth as though she would speak, but changed her mind and closed it again.  The pause lengthened for what seemed, to her, like minutes.  At last, she spoke, lifting her eyes to meet his.  "If you wish it…if, truly, you do…," she came closer, intimately so, pausing again.  Then, quietly, solemnly, she finished her thought, "…I will lie with you again—once more before you leave.  If you wish it…truly."  Lightly, she ran the tip of her index finger along the crest of his hip and down his thigh.  His lower abdomen twitched involuntarily as her finger strayed near his groin.  Almost quicker than seeing, he caught her hand and held it away from him, not angrily, but mechanically, automatically as though his mind was elsewhere and his body acted on its own.

When he released her wrist, she let her hand fall slack at her side.  "Of course," she nodded.  "I have deceived you, and I am sorry for it.  I understand if you can find no forgiveness in your heart.  I cannot fault you for it," she muttered miserably.  Legolas made no answer.  "So it is to be this way?  Go then and farewell, Legolas Greenleaf."  Arwen turned her back to him and cut gracefully though the water—upstream, against the current.  From behind, then, she heard his voice, soft, but commanding,

"Yes," he said.

"Yes?  What would you have of me?" she asked.

"Yes.  I wish it, truly.  I would have nothing of you—none of your pity, and none of your submission.  But I would have you—only you—forever.  I would spend eternity with you.  I would worship you until the sky falls into the sea," tears welled in his eyes.  His confession overwhelmed him.  Though they had been in his heart since they had first met, he had never spoken these words aloud to her before.  And though he knew the futility of his words, he spoke them nonetheless.  "If you cannot offer me that, then you offer me nothing."

"It cannot be.  I offer you my love, my friendship, and my body—if you desire it—but I cannot offer you eternity," whispered Arwen, painfully, achingly close—but separated by the breadth of a simple choice.  "I will love you always, Legolas…"  He advanced quickly this time, almost menacingly.  His deceptively delicate, slender hands clasped her jaw.  A small cry of surprise escaped her as he crushed his lips against hers with bruising force.  His kiss was demanding, rude, and she stiffened in his arms, trying to tear free.  At last, he released her.  She staggered backward and fell into the water.

Though his eyes remained blank and empty, hers blazed with anger when she spluttered to the surface.  Before she could say anything, he spoke.  His voice was soft—barely more than a whisper—but his tone was icy, steely cold.

"Then you offer me nothing, and you are nothing to me. You do not love me," he hissed.  "You have betrayed my trust, my love.  You are traitor to my very blood, Arwen.  Tell me not that you love me," he laughed mirthlessly.  "I will trouble you no longer."

"Farewell, then," she sighed.  He said nothing more.  He turned, wordlessly, and left the water.  Arwen watched helplessly as he ascended the bank.  Once astride his mount, he looked back at her unfeelingly.  He turned his back to her and rode north through the forest, toward his home, leaving her to wonder if she would ever see him again…

~~~~~~~~~~~

And there he sat in her bedchamber—hurting because of her choice.  And her choice was looming in the doorway, still awaiting an answer to his query.

Aragorn felt himself growing uneasy and impatient.  "Your what?  What about your what?" he repeated.  Another moment passed and still neither elf spoke.  "Arwen!  Answer me!" commanded the king, taking her hand and squeezing it a little.  It seemed to him as though she was startled from a daydream then.  She seemed to see him for the first time since he'd entered the room.

He looked back to Legolas who had gotten to his feet and masked his guilty expression.  "What about your what?" he asked them very slowly and very suspiciously.  Arwen turned to Legolas as well.  "Legolas?" Aragorn questioned his friend.  The prince only shook his head blankly and began to laugh.

"Aragorn, my friend, you have startled it completely from my mind.  It was not important," he smiled as genuinely, charmingly  as he could manage, but it felt forced and unnatural.

Aragorn gave the pair a last incredulous look.  "Very well," he said thoughtfully.  "Beloved, will you walk with me?"  Arwen nodded.  "Legolas, we shall see you tomorrow evening?"  Legolas nodded silently as well.  "Come then, Arwen, we will ride to Osgiliath."

Together the three of them descended the long staircase.  They went out into the brilliant morning sunlight.  Just before they parted ways, Legolas whispered almost inaudibly.  Only Arwen heard him.  "There is something I must tell you before you go," he said.  She shook her head reproachfully and departed on the arm of her soon-to-be husband.

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AN:  I'm so sorry this has been so long.  Honestly, I know that I am a horrible person for keeping you all waiting so long, but I have had a crazy semester.  My classes are hard, my roommate tried to run away with the circus (you think I'm kidding), I got a BOYFRIEND (not that anyone cares) who I have been paying lots and lots of attention to.  Writing sort of took a back seat, but I promise that I WILL finish this.  Just stick with me, please.  Thank you all so much for all your support.          ~DR


	16. The Hearts of Men

Once again, I fear that I cannot post this chapter.I'm going to post it on my livejournal and at adultfanfiction.net. Find it, read it, review it. ~DR 


	17. What Passed Before

(What Passed Before)

The tall grass that covered the plains waved in the breeze. The silver seed heads swirled and shimmered like roiling water about the knees of the party's mounts. The white wizard led the group, tall and unbent, confident and powerful as a young lord. His white beard fell to the withers of his regal steed. His staff held before him like a banner, he and Shadowfax flew through the rolling ocean of grass. And though the magnificent animal's large hooves and broad chest cut a swath both deep and wide before them, the trail behind closed as though his thundering strides were but a child's finger skimmed lazily through water. Arod and Hasufel could not keep pace with the king of their kind, but they ran as fast as their great legs would carry them. Frothing white gouts of sweat ran down their graceful necks and muscular flanks. But the spring in their stride told that they galloped not for fear or pain of whip, but for joy. Even Gimli, who at first had ridden, bouncing grumpily behind Legolas, could not help being transported by the thrill of the run.

The four of them had been riding hard for more than a day, and all but Gandalf were more than a little saddle sore—even Legolas, who was the first to spy a glint of gold on a distant heath.

"Meduseld!" he cried. Hasufel and Arod tossed their heads and whinnied thinly through their heaving breaths at the mention of their home.

"But a long way off yet, Legolas," yelled Aragorn over the din of a dozen pounding hooves, "I cannot see it."

"Aye, nor I," grumbled the dwarf to himself after he had strained his eyes to the horizon.

"Have you not learned to trust my eyes where yours are inferior, Gimli?" called the elf over his shoulder.

"Your eyes may be sharp, but not as sharp as your tongue. And even that, elf, is not as sharp as my axe," retorted Gimli. Legolas answered with a bark of laughter.

"I shall make you a bargain. If we do not arrive by sunset, I will carry you on my own back the rest of the way and we will give this poor, overburdened animal a well deserved rest. Will that do?" smirked the prince of Mirkwood.

"And a fine pack pony you'll make, I'm sure."

One by one, the other members of the group sighted the Golden Hall. Then, the only sounds they heard for a great distance after that were those of their horses' hooves drumming rhythmically and the whishing of the wind as it blustered over the plain. And for a long time it seemed that Theoden's hall grew no larger on the horizon.

"Does this flat blasted landscape never end?" grumbled Gimli after more than an hour of what was rapidly becoming a monotonous, numbing, thudding trek. Legolas laughed heartily.

"It is only barely midday. Are your mithril britches at last beginning to chafe?"

"Humph."

"It would be truly miraculous if your nethers had escaped callouses until now, I suppose."

"I'll not have a beardless pup speculating on the condition of my nethers, thank you very much," growled the dwarf. He slapped the elf genially on the side and both barked a few short laughs before relative silence was restored.

At last, they reached the steep sides of the tall hill that Meduseld was situated atop. The heavy gates, hewn from a single, centuries old Fangorn oak and laced over with substantial, yet intricate ironwork, were closed. Two mighty iron horses reared in contest. Their great hooves seemed poised to crush any unwelcome visitors who approached. All visitors, it seemed, were equally unwelcome. The effect was ominous.

A cry went up from the tower guard as the three horses approached the gate.

"Who begs entrance into the King Theoden's city?" called the watchman.

"I do not beg entrance," called Gandalf, his voice booming impressively. "I request an audience with the king."

"State your name and business," said the guard down from on high.

"My name is Gandalf, and my business is none of yours," answered the wizard shortly. Shadowfax snorted once, as if in assent.

"Move along, then. If you will not tell me your business, then you shall not enter," barked the guard

Shadowfax took a few slow, deliberate steps forward and pressed his velvet muzzle against the proud gates. They swung inward easily before the great silver beast. The lord of the Mearas could not be denied entrance into a city where his ancestor Felaróf galloped on the breeze, flying proudly on the green field of Rohan's pennant.

The party moved slowly, cautiously into the city. The gatemen protested no more. Along the road that climbed steadily upward toward the great hall, pallid faces peeked out at them, severe and unsmiling.

Again their way was barred at the doors of the hall. Gandalf gave a weary sigh. He had been renewed by the Valar after his defeat of the balrog, but still the trials presented by the ignorant and mislead exhausted, exasperated and saddened him. The wizard dismounted. The others did likewise.

"If you would have audience with the King, then you must surrender your weapons here Gandalf Greyhame," said one of the lieutenants. Quietly, the wizard handed over Glamdring as the others removed their various weapons. The other three relinquished their arms more reluctantly with words of warning to any who would mishandle them.

"You cannot know the power you hold in your hands," said Aragorn as he handed Anduril to one of the guards. "If that sword is so much as unsheathed I shall know it, and you will have me to answer to," he growled. The guard nodded solemnly. Any temptation he might have felt to examine the mighty blade more closely was squelched by the other man's dark glare. Gimli and Legolas grumbled similar threats.

"I must have your staff also, Gandalf," said the captain.

"Do you propose to carry me before the king yourself or shall I crawl? I will give you my arms, but you will have to take my dignity by force," scowled the wizard, leaning heavily on the white staff.

"Very well," muttered the captain, not wishing to anger the old wizard or challenge his passage further.

The great golden doors swung creakily inward before them. Meduseld was cold and dreary within. Stark rays of white sunlight slashed down through the dusty air. Shards of light fell sharply across the grime dulled stone floor. In the grate was naught but cold ashes, but all the walls, the tall wooden columns, the bright banners were greyed and blotched with soot. It looked as though no one had lifted a hand to stave off the filth in weeks.

A shaft of light illuminated a figure seated in the heavy, finely carved golden throne which stood on a dais at the head of the hall. _That cannot be the king_—thought Aragorn. But the gold that adorned the old man's wizened brow glinted in the sun and told them that it was indeed Theoden who gazed blearily at them as they advanced. No entourage, no court surrounded him. And until the party came close, the aged king appeared quite alone.

Gandalf was the first to notice the second figure who skulked in the shadows behind the throne. The skulking man was pallid and black robed. His oily black hair hung lank in his shrewd, silver-blue eyes. Grima's cold eyes never left Gandalf as he leaned into the light a little to whisper into the king's ear. His words did not carry across the dust dampened room, but his tone was unctuous. Contempt was scrawled across his face as he withdrew into the shadows again.

Aragorn thought it unnatural the way Wormtongue watched them. He had not blinked once, nor had his eyes left Gandalf. But just then, his gaze flickered to one side of the dingy hall. _Only a fool_…, thought Aragorn. He glanced around, looking for the attackers. The guards held their places around the hall, but the thing that had caught Grima's eye was immediately evident.

A young woman came slowly and quietly into the room. She was clad all in white. Her honey colored hair fell in loose waves down to her waist. Aragorn knew that she must be of Theoden's kin. Her features were strong and sharp, her complexion ruddy, but it was her eyes that held his attention. Eowyn watched her uncle with an exquisite sadness which sparkled in her pale blue eyes. It was this sadness that reminded Aragorn so forcibly of his beloved who was so far away in Rivendell. Her eyes, too, shone with the sorrow of her kind.

Eowyn surveyed the strangers warily. She met Aragorn's gaze unabashedly and in his surprise, he looked away. But even as he brought his attention back to the happenings of that fateful visit to Meduseld, she haunted him.

Though her beauty paled in compare to that of his Evenstar, he had seen nothing so beautiful as this fresh, young, flaxen maiden for several months. All his days, it seemed, had been consumed with the ugliness of the world, but this woman stood out in stark, white, lovely contrast to that.

Aragorn did not know how far she would test his resolve before their paths parted, but for the moment she intrigued him.

AN: I know. I suck. I'm sorry it's been such a long time. I'm almost finished with the next chapter as well, but I promise nothing. Good call, Wren ( I had that one spelled wrong in my little mental file of dorkiness. Thanks J.

P.S. I'm amazed no one's called me on having left out the hobbits. In fact, I just noticed it. Suffice it to say, every tall person has a shorter passenger…they're mostly just scenery at this point anyway. And besides which, the story isn't about them. So yeah. They're supposed to be there, but I'm going to ignore them. If I try to fit them in now I'll just screw it all up. If you want to add the little fellers to your mental pictures, be my guest…they're probably trying to stay out from underfoot and snarfling around for something to munch…little stoners that they are…Longbottom Leaf indeed…


	18. Flower of the Field

(Flower of the Field)

For most of her life, Éowyn had been the only woman living in Meduseld. Théodwyn, Éowyn's and Éomer's mother, like all Théoden's sisters had surrendered their apartments in the Golden Hall in favor of a quiet, working life and quiet, working husbands. But when her husband died, Théodwyn, four months gone with child, brought herself and her small son back to live in the royal house. Shortly after Éowyn's birth, she and her brother were orphaned. Their uncle, Théoden, took them for his own.

Since then, nurses, maids, and a few cooks had been the only other women in the house. These women had shown Éowyn what it meant to be a woman of Rohan. These women did not stand idly by as their fates unfolded. They watched the skies, the stars, the change of the seasons. They used what they had at hand to turn adversity to their advantage. And their lessons had not escaped her. Éowyn had, however, been raised largely by men; as a boy, in many ways. Not in every way.

As a girl, she had followed Éomer about incessantly. He tolerated her devotion, but saw her, mainly, as a nuisance. But even as Éowyn admired her brother, her cousin, she adored. Théodred, less the victim of prepubescent angst found the little girl amusing. Despite her uncle's misgivings as to the wisdom of traveling with such a young child and a girl at that, when Éomer was old enough to ride alone with the Rohirrim as they made their patrol, Éowyn rode too. She traveled well. She would bounce along in front of her cousin for hours without complaint. In the evening, Éomer would gather fuel for the fire. When the fire was lit and the riders were cooking their supper, Éowyn would help. Afterward, she would sing with them the songs of the field. Then, she would sing and dance and caper about the fire, much to the delight of the men. She would sleep under the stars, on hard ground, next to Théodred and awake with the sun, pleasant as if she had slept on a feather bed in the warmth of her chamber. Théodred called her Sunshine.

As Éowyn grew taller, more boyish, and more stubborn about it, her cousin never scolded her for her unladylike behavior as Éomer and, sometimes, Théoden did. On the contrary, Théodred insisted that she learn to handle a blade and ride a horse as a boy would.

At fourteen, breasts came as something of a surprise to Éowyn. To her they were little more than an inconvenience. It did not, however, escape her notice that their appearance had a staggering effect on the way others related to her. Though he loved her very much, Éomer's admonitions of her masculine behavior redoubled.

"We shall have some new dresses made for you, Éowyn," said Théoden one evening when Éowyn came in from the stable, straw in her hair, wearing a young man's riding habit. His meaning was clear. She was rapidly becoming a woman and her uncle had declared that it was time she began to dress as one. His command was not punitive, though. The dresses proved tolerable. They were soft, fairly unrestrictive, and had deep pockets. Their addition to her appearance, though, seemed somehow to make permanent the change to womanhood.

Almost immediately, men's eyes for her had changed, but not Théodred's. He still took her to ride with him every morning. He sparred with her out in the yard. She no longer rode with the Rohirrim. Their eyes made her uneasy.

Gríma Wormtongue's eyes were the worst. His gaze was unsettling enough to anyone. But when he looked at Éowyn, his silver-blue eyes gleamed with a hungry light. In dreams, those eyes haunted her. Gríma also thought of her in the night. Saruman had promised.

Some months before, it had been abominably dry and Théoden sent Gríma to ask the wizard for rain. The man was terrified, but Saruman obliged. In return, he wanted no golden token, no horses. He, instead, requested Wormtongue's service. Saruman promised the man he would reward him richly.

"Is there any prize you desire, my friend?" asked Saruman, his fascinating voice compelling an answer.

"I cannot ask for what I desire," answered the man. One of the wizard's dark eyebrows rose curiously.

"And why is that?"

"It is not yours to give," Gríma cowered. To his surprise, Saruman laughed richly.

"Ask," he commanded again.

"I dare not."

"I will not ask again," said the wizard sternly. Gríma cringed further and whispered almost too softly to be heard,

"Éowyn. Théoden's niece. I want her. But she is so young. Already, I am an old man to her."

"She is old enough," answered Saruman, amused at the hunched man's guilty desire for the young girl. _So simple_, he thought. "You shall have her when I have Rohan," he said finally, "You have my word."

Gríma thought of the wizard's promise as he lay in his bed, imagining how the girl's blushing flesh would feel beneath him. He imagined creeping into her room and watching her sleep for a while before slipping silently into her bed. He imagined how her eyes would widen and roll with surprise and fear when he covered her mouth, pinned her down, and made her his. To sully her virtue with his depravity, to deface her beauty with his ugliness, to spoil her, to take both her maidenhead and her innocence; that was what he wanted.

He rose early the next morning. The sun was about to peer over the peaks of the northernmost White Mountains. Gríma pulled a heavy black robe across his bony shoulders and closed it over his pallid chest. Yards of fabric hung on his gaunt frame like an ill-fitting second skin.

He closed the door quietly behind him as he exited into dim hall. Ordinarily, he would have proceeded directly to his audience with Théoden, but the vividness of his fantasy the previous night induced him to take a risk that he seldom allowed himself. He swept down the corridor, his black robe billowing behind him like an evil wind, careful to make no sound lest he attract curious eyes. Unobserved, he arrived at Éowyn's door. He knelt. The dark of the windowless hallway allowed him to lurk in the deep shadows, unseen by passersby. He checked the main corridor beadily before turning his gaze to the keyhole in the heavy door. His timing, it seemed, was impeccable. As he watched, the large pile of blankets in the center of the bed began to stir. A head of tousled golden hair emerged from the mass of bedclothes. She rose slowly and stretched, yawning. His breath caught as she stepped toward the window, the newly risen sun silhouetting her blossoming figure against the translucent cloth of her long nightshirt. His breath grew heavier as he watched her loosen the lacing of her shift and let it fall to the floor.

A hand, heavy on his shoulder, abruptly shattered his lecherous reverie. Fear flooded him. Gríma was a coward in his heart, and when he discovered that the hand belonged to Théodred, what had been a sort of a dull fear was instantly honed to razor sharp terror. Softly and deliberately, Théoden's heir spoke.

"If, ever, I find you here again, I will kill you," he said calmly, with the air of one commenting on the weather. The effect was sinister. A defiant sneer played across Wormtongue's face, but he managed to keep it in check. Théodred continued, "She is yet a child. And she is not for you." At these words, Gríma arched an appraising eyebrow. Wormtongue met the steady eyes of Rohan's heir with new confidence, changing tact deftly.

"Of course," he simpered. "Such a perfect blossom must be plucked by a worthy hand," he finished. A mean smirk twisted his haggard face. Théodred scowled. Without further threat, he grabbed the smaller man where he knelt by his oily, lank hair and slammed his head against the door three times, hard. Gríma yelped in pain with each impact. Théodred released him and, at once, he staggered away whimpering, blood running freely down his forehead from his split scalp.

Éowyn, hearing the commotion outside her door, slipped quickly back into her gown.

"Who's there?" she called tentatively.

"Only me," was her cousin's answer as he opened the door slowly. The sight that greeted him was unexpected. Éowyn stood before him, eyes wide and innocent. Pale dawn light backlit the girl, illuminating her voluptuous figure. He saw her face only dimly. She smiled warmly at him.

"Is everything alright?" she asked. Théodred did not hear her. The pause protracted. She watched him expectantly. He did not answer. And even as she awaited his reply she watched his eyes change, just as other men's eyes had changed. Rather than frightening her, as other men did, Théodred's glassy, lustful gaze sent a ripple of excitement through her body. She made no move to cover herself. Instead, she let the hand that clutched her nightshirt closed at the neck drop to her side. "Cous…?" she began.

"A rat," he interrupted. He gestured vaguely behind him, toward the half open door. "There was a rat in the hall," he said, a bit embarrassed by the realization that he'd been staring. "But it is gone now," he finished lamely.

"Are you alright?" she asked, smiling inwardly as Théodred averted his eyes. "Is the sun too bright?"

"Yes to both," he smiled, grateful for the escape.

"Have you only come to visit," she asked brightly, "or did you…want something?" she purred the final two words, letting him know that his fierce green eyes had betrayed him.

When she had first become a woman, the oft-overlooked women of the household, the cooks and domestics, had taken it upon themselves to begin the girl's education concerning her changing place in the world. They had answered her questions and given her wonderful and frightening new information about her own body, about men, and about sex. She had always been an eager student and she was terribly curious, if a little nervous about beginning to explore this strange new realm.

But now, Théodred's again-lingering eyes sent a second exhilarating jolt through her strong body. He seemed, again, unable to find his voice. He was amazed to see not fear, but the fire of keen willingness sparkling in her eyes. She was still a child in his eyes, but Gríma's words rang in his ears once more. She was, indeed, a perfect blossom, ripe and fresh. She could, he thought, be only dimly aware of what awaited her in the warmth of a common bed. Her boldness impressed him the more for it.

"Are we going to ride this morning?" she prompted

"Riding, yes," he said distractedly, awkwardly making eye contact. He smiled broadly, if a little uncomfortably before adding, "Hurry and get dressed and meet me at the stables," and without waiting for an answer, Théodred swept from the room.

He walked quickly to his father's chambers. Théoden raised a curious eyebrow at his son's flustered entrance. The younger man was still catching his breath when he began to speak.

"Éowyn…," he began, "she is…," he did not know the words to continue. Théoden smiled knowingly.

"She is," the father said, nodding. "Do you want her?" Théodred blinked a few times, not at all sure of what his sire asked him.

"Do I…?"

"Do you want her? She is of age. She is beautiful. She loves you. And, one day, you will need an heir," Théoden said. His son was silent a moment longer. His thoughts were scattered. He had come to tell his father about Gríma's skulking, but he found himself nodding in assent.

"Yes. Yes, I want her," he said.

"Then she is yours."

"May I make one more request, father?"

"Of course."

"Banish that snake, Gríma, from your service. I do not trust him," said the son earnestly. Théoden sighed.

"He has not had occasion to earn your trust, my son. I will not discharge him."

"But father, this morning…," he began.

"I will not discharge him," the king interrupted. It was final. Théodred pursued the matter no further.

By the time that he reached the stables, Éowyn had already tacked her horse and waited for him. Her cousin was relieved to see her dress was much less distracting. Quickly, he groomed and tacked his own horse. They talked a little, but Théodred's mind was not on the conversation. She was his. His father had approved the match. He could have her whenever he wished. And because of it, he saw her in a new light. Still, he wanted her to be happy. Never would he take her forcibly. Her earlier behavior suggested that such crude means would be unnecessary.

Together they rode out. They galloped together in silence a while. They did not follow their usual route. Instead, Théodred led her into the foothills of the White Mountains. They walked their horses side by side through the rocky terrain. The great beasts enjoyed a slack rein and a leisurely pace. At last, they found a favorite grassy enclave amongst the craggy hills and dismounted. They removed several parcels from their saddlebags and unwrapped their lunch. As their riders talked and ate, the horses grazed on the sparse, but lush foliage, staying close. As he talked, Théodred eyed his new acquisition discreetly. She was so beautiful to him; more so, now that she was his. He tried to think of a way to tell her. He realized she might be apprehensive, fearful even of what he had planned for the next few hours. He was still trying to come up with a good segue when her words demanded his full attention.

"This morning, your eyes changed. What does that mean, Théodred?" asked the girl. He was struck, suddenly and hard, by her youth. Her body was that of a woman, but the innocence of the question shook him. In fact, she had a very good idea of what it meant, but she wanted to hear it from him. He shifted a little uncomfortably. He hadn't expected her to be so direct.

"I…um…this morning…," he paused. He decided that only honesty would do. She had been direct with him, and he would return that courtesy. "This morning I found Gríma Wormtongue outside your door, looking in the keyhole," he continued as a look of horror and revulsion twisting her face, "I will not let him harm you, Éowyn." She relaxed a little. "But what he said…and when I saw you...you are so lovely," he touched her cheek. "I want you, Éowyn, as a woman. Do you know what that means?" He looked into her bright eyes searchingly. Slowly, she nodded. He waited for her to speak. At last, she said,

"Already, you have taught me so much about being a man. I can think of no one better to teach me about being a woman." Her answer was a kiss. He had kissed her sometimes before, but never like this. His lips were hungry, demanding, frightening, but exhilarating too. She kissed him back, opening her mouth slightly to admit his gently probing tongue. He took her hand and guided it to his leather-clad thigh. Not only did she not recoil, but moved adventurously upward.

Then, Gríma was in his head, his pouchy, pallid face, grinning evilly. _Am I no better?_ Théodred wondered. He was finally sure that she was amenable, but now that he was sure, he questioned it. She had slept with him as a little girl. As a child, his had been the bed that nightmares had driven her to. How recently that had been. And now, he held that little girl in his arms. Now he meant to take her for his own. He meant her, one day, to bear his children. _She is but a child herself_, he thought. Her hand had crept higher still as he thought. She was but a moment from the growing heat in his loins when he stopped her. He drew back and surveyed her a moment. Again, he was surprised to see bold desire in her eyes. _How better to protect her, than to take her for my own?_ he thought. And he pulled her too him hard, pressing her delicate hand against his yearning flesh. Her eyes widened, but she smiled, too. Then, it was she who kissed him as she melted into his arms. He lay back with her on the soft grass. And slowly, sweetly, they made love.

AN: I didn't know if it would be too weird to go into sweaty detail with the little-girl-with-the-much-older-man-thing and him being her cousin to boot. But if you want to hear it, and if I get enough ahem encouragement…I think I could be persuaded to write it. Thanks for reading, anyway. Leave me one! DR


	19. The Binding

Trine

(The Binding)

Symbelmynë. The small, bright white blossoms shone bluish in the strange moonlight. For the past several months, when the westward wind blew and the moon was full and fat, it cast a blue hue over all it illuminated. Legolas smelled the smoke. To his keen nose, the stench of Orthanc's fires permeated all the way to Edoras, several dozen leagues to the southeast.

He had ventured outside once he had resigned himself to the fact that his companions, particularly Gimli, were not likely to cease snoring in the near future. The elf found sleeping indoors with a large number of unwashed men likewise objectionable. He doubted if even the sulfurous fumes of Orodruin could smell as wretched as these men of Rohan. The fetid smoke emanating from Isengard made the outdoors an equally unsatisfactory source of fresh air. Disappointed, Legolas was about to go back inside when something caught his sharp eye. From his high vantage point, he could see a figure with long blonde hair advancing down the road between the tombs of Théoden's ancestors. He watched as the figure, a woman, turned and began weaving between the mounds.

Éowyn had trained her attention entirely on the large patch of Symbelmynë that covered the hummock directly ahead of her. Mere days before, she had watched as Théodred's men bore his shrouded body into the catacomb beneath that very barrow. She had not wept when they had borne his broken body home. Even then, she had held fast to the hope that he might mend, that the strength of his spirit could overcome his grievous injuries. But his hurts had been too great. In the night, in her arms, he had slipped away into eternal slumber. She had felt him go. Then had her tears flowed. She wept for a long time, in solitude, while the village slept below. Now, she tried to put the memory, the utter loneliness of it, from her. She needed to concentrate on her task. She covered the distance quickly, climbed the hill, and drew a small dagger from her pocket.

Legolas saw the blade glint in the moonlight and watched, fascinated, as the woman knelt and began cutting flowers from the very crest of the mound. Given the lateness of the hour and the furtive swiftness of her motions, he suspected that her actions were forbidden. He was curious now. The elf slipped back into the abundant shadows, waiting to see what she would do. From there, he watched as she made her way back toward the gates of the city. The guards did not appear to notice as she slipped through the sliver of an opening between the massive doors. Legolas was now very curious. He watched as she made her way up the lane toward Meduseld.

_'Symbelmynë from Théodred's grave, a few drops of our blood, a strip of cloth or leather from his clothing…a lock of his hair would be better…' _Éowyn listed as she climbed the stairs to the Golden Hall…_'The symbelmynë was easy enough. The guards haven't sighted me. These few flowers won't be missed. The other bits could prove to be problematic. But then…then he will be mine and I will be his. And he will forget her.'_ She walked on, absorbed in her own thoughts, confident that no one would be out to see her.

"And what, may I ask, is the lady Éowyn doing out so late?" inquired the prince, stepping quietly out of the shadows. Éowyn immediately stopped and turned slowly to face him. She did not speak. Smiling, he took a few steps closer. She took a step back. "You need not fear me," he said softly.

"You are an elf," she answered. Her tone was suspicious. She neither blinked nor took her cold blue eyes off him.

"I am," he smiled a little, "have you never seen one before?" He expected her to look away. She did not.

"No," she answered simply.

"Symbelmynë? Cut at the full moon? From the crown of a barrow? What shall I think, my lady?" he spoke gently, still.

"I am not your lady," she said sharply.

"Nor have you answered my question," he purred, seemingly amused. He suspected the answer to his question was something to do with the way her brilliant eyes lingered on Aragorn whenever they were close. He had also seen how the man's gaze wandered in her direction when others were engaged in conversation. "You would make a much more suitable companion for him, Éowyn. She is no equal for his birth. She does not deserve him," Legolas, then, made a long pause before, "I will help you, if I can."

Until then, Éowyn had managed to keep her face and bearing neutral. But once he uttered those words, an expression of puzzlement and surprise fell across her features, yet suspicion still glinted in her eyes.

"How can I help you?" he asked almost too softly to be heard.

"A lock of his hair. If you elves are as fantastical as I have always heard, then bring it to me in my chamber. Leave the Great Hall through the center left door, climb two flights of stairs, and take the second corridor to the right. My apartments are at the end of that hallway," she said quickly, but deliberately. Then, she turned and walked away. Her hair, silvery in the moonlight, flowed out behind her in the gentle westerly breeze.

Legolas continued to smile to himself as he turned to go back inside. He was quite pleased at how readily she had accepted his aid. It would be a simple matter for the elf to cut a lock of the man's hair. _'And then, Arwen will know the folly of her choice. How can she sacrifice an eternal love for a mortal one? My love for his? How shall I go to the West, how shall I meet our daughter without her?'_

Almost before he realized it, Legolas found himself back in the large chamber where Aragorn and the others slept. The elf watched his companion sleep for a time. He knew that he was one of the very few who could have done this without immediately waking the man. His hand closed lightly around the ivory handle of his lethal blade and he drew it without a sound as he knelt at Aragorn's side. The strange moonlight fell, from the high clerestory window at the end of the hall, down onto the man's face. The elf turned the flat of the blade into the light so that the steel gleamed blue and showed him his own reflection. Slowly, he lowered the dagger so that it almost rested on his friend's throat. He drew it towards him. It would be such a simple, leisurely, sort of motion. He closed his eyes for a moment, imagining the spray of arterial blood. It would be hot on his face. The look of surprise and fear would almost be worth it. If Elrond himself, and Arwen, too, had not sworn him to protect this man, he would have done it, and consequences be damned. With a small sigh, Legolas switched his blade once and removed a long lock of Aragorn's dark hair.

The way to Éowyn's chamber was clear. He knocked. The door opened immediately, but only a little, and her icy eyes peered out at him through the crack. She said nothing.

"May I come in?" he asked politely. In place of an answer, a pale, slender, open hand jutted abruptly through the small opening. He held up the stolen hair to the sliver of light coming from within the room. "I can be more help to you than just this."

"I can manage," her voice was soft, but her tone, firm. Legolas raised a skeptical eyebrow, but handed over the precious tress and left by the way he had come…

Éowyn had gathered what she needed. A small fire burned in the pit at the center of her chamber. On the coals sat a large bowl, carved roughly from one of Rohan's hard, grey fieldstones. In it were the lock of long sable hair and the symbelmynë. From a chest on her desk, she drew a small dagger. She used the tip of the blade to cut a few strands of her own hair from the nape of her neck. These she knotted together with the lock of Aragorn's hair, then added them to the bowl. The blood was the last thing.

She had not bled in over two months. And when Théodred had come back to her all cloven and bloodied, she had mused on the irony. Her abdomen had begun to twist and cramp almost immediately following her lover's departure. When she awoke the following morning, her gown and bedclothes were stained crimson. More than a week had passed since then and Éowyn had not yet stopped bleeding. _"So much the better,"_ she thought.

From beneath her white gown, she produced a soft cloth soaked through with her still-warm blood. When she wrung it over the bowl, a small but steady stream of thick, dark fluid fell over the other items in the basin, splashing up the sides, running down in rivulets, and, finally, collecting at the bottom of the bowl. It stilled quickly. In the moonlight, it was black as a fathomless pool of night. Éowyn pulled her hair back to keep from dragging it in the fire. She leaned far forward. Her reflection gazed placidly back at her from the dark surface. Sometimes a lazy, glutinous bubble would rise from the heat of the stone mortar. It would linger for a moment before it burst, sending a little ripple across the surface. With every ripple that interrupted her reflection, Éowyn watched her face change subtly. Slowly, the blood began to boil.

Steam rose from the surface. Illuminated by the moonlight, the vapor shone silver. A face, quite different from Éowyn's own swirled out of the mist. It was an elf's high, smooth brow, serene eyes, and refined, patrician features that headed the column of steam as it wafted toward the woman. It was the face that Aragorn's heart would see when the charm was done. The shimmering countenance lingered, seeming to watch the yellow haired lady.

Sweat beaded at Éowyn's temples from the heat of the blue flames that danced low over the bed of glowing coals. She felt as if she herself were boiling inside. She reclined against the foot of her bed, not breaking eye contact with the spectral imago. Her eyes stung from the heat and smoke. Her head felt heavy. Her eyes fluttered and closed as her head slumped forward, her chin coming to rest, finally, on her chest. And then, she began to chant softly:

_Blood of my blood_

_Borne on a fume_

_Sweetly perfumed with white symbelmynë_

_Fair symbelmynë, sprung from love's tomb and pyre_

_Curl to ash and cloy his sense_

_Give wing to my desire_

_Bruised petals sunder bonds of old, let love be forged anew,_

_In crimson mirror bides thy love_

_Reflect my likeness true_

_Blood of my blood_

_Course through his veins_

_Bind us together to make one, the twain_

_By twisted locks and sanguine charm, may two this night be bound_

_And in my heart, and in my flesh_

_His truest love be found_

Over and over, she chanted the incantation. With each repetition, the vaporous face grew denser and drew nearer to Éowyn's down turned face. She chanted until she was no longer aware of her sorrow or her surroundings. She chanted until she was not even aware of her own voice. At last, only the shimmering face occupied her consciousness. She opened her eyes, and there it hovered, inches from her face. Deliberately, she emptied her lungs completely. Her warm exhalation momentarily disrupted the spectre. Then a yawn tickled her sinuses and twisted her face. Involuntarily, her jaw stretched wide. Air was not all she breathed in.

When Éowyn awoke, the pale light outside the window told her it was not quite dawn. The ashes were cold in the hearth, but the fire had done its work. The grim residuum which lined the vessel had boiled dry, caked, and cracked. The lucent chimera was gone. Now, she would finish the charm. Using a large stone pestle, she ground the brittle russet slag into a fine powder.

When she had finished, Éowyn emptied the spell into a small leather purse. The purse, she placed on the still-made bed. Only the dried blood in the creases of her hands and under her fingernails told of the grisly enterprise she had undertaken in the night. Her handsome face remained impassive.

She crossed to her dressing table and sat. The water in her washbasin showed Éowyn the a few ashes that had settled on her face. She smeared them across her cheek and smiled at her reflection for a moment before splashing cold water on her face. Next, she turned her attention to cleaning the brown blood from her hands. With a stiff brush, she scrubbed at her palms until they were red and chapped, but, at last, her skin came clean.

From a stout chest beside her bed, she drew a fresh gown. She unclasped the small golden frogs on the gown she wore. With only the merest rustle, the soft, white linen slipped from her shoulders. Éowyn stepped naked from the garment that encircled her feet. She picked up her robe and hung it on a hook near the window so it could air. She smelled the cold morning breeze as it blew in through the high casement. The air was dry, but redolent with the sweet, dusty scent of ripe hay. It would be time for the scythe and the bailing twine soon. Éowyn liked this time of year.

A stiff, chill wind, whipped in through the open window, blowing her hair about her. Her yellow mane caressed her rosy skin as it prickled in the cold. Her nipples stood out, pink and firm on her magnificent breasts.

She smiled down at her body. It was a good body, she thought. It was strong, and served her well. It was also beautiful; a fact she had come, thanks all to Théodred, to appreciate.

Thanks to him, she had carried a life inside of her. That life was quickly leaving her, and already she felt the loss. Sometimes grief's cold fingers dipped into her chest, gripping her heart so cruelly that she could do little else but weep. In a moment, both the father and the child, a son, she imagined, had left her. No longer lover or mother, only woman was left. Only woman. Weak. Powerless.

But this morning she was hopeful. She had been grateful for the strangers' arrival. In the days after Théoden's descent, Théodred's death, and Éomer's banishment, Gríma had haunted her. It seemed that wherever she went, Wormtongue had been there. Always, he had watched her with his greedy eyes, but he had not yet dared to touch her. She had even slept armed.

Once Gandalf had broken the foul enchantment that bound her uncle, though, he banished Saruman's sniveling servant forthwith. The wizard's ignoble pledge unfulfilled. Aragorn's arrival had spared her those unpleasantries.

When she had first laid eyes him, Éowyn had known him to be no ordinary man. Kingliness radiated from him. He had drawn her eye immediately. For a moment, she had seen not Aragorn, but Théodred. She had observed him closely since then. Their resemblance was striking only in the majestic air both possessed. Aragorn exuded nobility, masculinity, and power; if anything, more than had Rohan's heir. Irresistibly, he drew her.

Aragorn likewise felt a strong attraction to the young woman. She was so unlike Arwen. This lady of Rohan, this flower of the field that bloomed even in such adversity was buxom and strong. She was strong in the manner of a man, but also vulnerable, fragile as a girl. Her youth, too, enchanted him. He had lived much of his life amongst elves and men of his own kind. She was so young. Life flared from her like heat. She shed it, spent it continuously.

Éowyn's vitality spoke of the future, while Arwen's placid disposition spoke of ages past. The elf was vibrant in the way of her people. Their lives burned long and slow as embers in the heart of an eternal fire. Her strength, though greater than even he knew, was less conspicuous, quieter. She was his complement. She was his prize.

And though Éowyn captivated him, he did not intend to pursue her. Arwen was his love. It was the thought of her that had brought him through so many hardships. She was the reward that awaited him at the end of his long journey. He had sacrificed much for her, and, for him, she had given more than he knew.

Éowyn thought of the man as she dressed. She wanted him. The jewel at his throat, a gift from his woman, told her that he would not come to her easily. Éowyn knew little of her. The dark one who had procured her most crucial ingredient was an elf. His words suggested that Aragorn's lady was also of that kind. Rohan's fairest daughter thought it an unnatural union.

She had just finished dressing when there was a soft knock at her door. Quickly, she picked up her small blade and the leather pouch from her bed and tucked them into one of her deep pockets. Théoden opened the door a little. She smiled brightly.

"Good morning, uncle," she beamed. She was immensely glad that he had returned from his dark fugue. He smiled back, but a bit dolefully. He had awoken from his ominous dreams and evil visions to find his worst nightmare a reality. And his weakness, his frailty had led him into despair and left Éowyn alone to live out that nightmare.

"Good morning," he smiled back, paternally. She watched him expectantly. His thoughts had been with her in the surreal days following his awakening, but he had not known how to go to her, how to ask her forgiveness. Not even as Háma and the rest of the King's guard bore Théodred's lifeless body into the cool, dry earth of the barrow could Théoden bear to look on his niece. She was too painful a reminder of the death, not only of his son, but also of his line.

This morning he had resolved to speak to her, but now that he stood before her, words failed him. He knew what duty he needed of her, but he hadn't the heart to ask it.

"Éowyn…I…," he could find no way to continue. He tried again, "I…How are you, child?"

"I am well enough," she kept her voice as light as she could. "And you, uncle, are you well?"

"Also well enough, I suppose," he nodded, his smile feeling as forced and artificial as Éowyn's tone. At last, he mustered the determination to say what he had come to say. "Éowyn, my daughter-niece…I am sorry…for everything. I abandoned you when hope left me. I failed you," tears began to well in Théoden's eyes as he spoke.

"Please, uncle. Please. You need not make any such apology. And I would not see you troubled so," she went to him and took his large leathern hand in her two smaller ones. She was both surprised and saddened to find that it trembled.

"You may not need to hear it, child, but I need to make it. I failed you. And I failed your brother. And…," his grief choked him. His breath would only come in ragged gasps, and it took him a moment to master himself again. Tears rolled down his aged cheeks as he continued, not meeting her eyes, "And Théodred, too. And I am sorry for it. For you." At that, Éowyn also bowed her head, trying desperately to keep from weeping. She wished she think of some comfort for him, but none came to her. Only her lost son, unknown to Théoden, unknown to all but herself and Théodred, only he came to mind. That knowledge, she knew, would only bring him pain.

"I love you, uncle," she said at last, quietly. She let him enfold her in his strong embrace.

"And I, you, child," he held her for a long time, remembering the warmth of her little body against his chest and the smell of her honey hair as she had clung to him teetering on the edge of sleep. She had been barely more than a babe, disquieted by the keening of wolves in the distant mountains. But that little girl was gone, replaced with the beautiful, strong, sorrowful woman he held to him. After several minutes, the king spoke again, "I am yet sorrier that I must ask something more of you."

"Name it."

"Rohan stands alone. My awakening from despair's dark slumber has shown me that there is yet hope, but I fear for our land, and for our people. Our alliance with Gondor has grown uncertain…," he paused. His niece's carefully neutral expression told him not whether she had caught his drift. He continued. "This man, Aragorn. He is to be their king…," he trailed off again. A smile flickered at the corners of her mouth, but did not quite take hold.

"I understand," she said, regarding her uncle again soberly.

It was a long journey from Helms Deep home to Edoras. Both man and beast trudged across uneven terrain, heads hung and legs heavy with fatigue. The men's jubilation in the wake of victory was depressed somewhat by the women's grief for their fallen fathers, brothers, sons, and husbands. But sometimes, a hearty laugh rose above the shuffling footfalls of the column.

From well behind, the elf missed nothing. No glance, no touch that passed between Aragorn and Éowyn escaped him as the pair walked and talked quietly together. Legolas had carefully distanced himself from Gandalf and Gimli also. As much as he liked the dwarf, he was in no mood for conversation.

_The perils of Moria and Helms Deep were nothing to peril in that woman's eyes_—thought the elf darkly. Countless times since the Fellowship had departed the last homely house, it would have been so easy to let the man fall. The elf sometimes caught himself fondly imagining the meaty thunk of a cruel Uruk-hai blade cleaving the man's flesh and bone. It would have been a simple enough matter for Legolas to have placed himself conveniently far away from Aragorn at some crucial moment. He sometimes fantasized about watching the cause of all the misery in his life go tumbling down a black and bottomless chasm, disappearing into nothingness. But Legolas was bound by his word.

When he arrived at Imladris, a letter waited on his pillow. He thought its placement ironic when he found that it was from Arwen. She made a simple enough request. _Watch over him_, the letter read. _Let him come to no harm. I know I have no right to ask it of you_—on that much, at least, they agreed—_but please, please keep him safe._

He could never deny her. Even the fury, the hurt resultant from his discovery of the truth underlying her disappearance to Lorien so many centuries ago, even that had subsided. And though he loved her still with every part of himself, he knew she had never fully given herself to him. Arwen's embrace was more passionate than any he had experienced before or since. But ever had she held him at arm's length from her most secret heart. He knew it, and he felt it always.

The times they had met since he had left her in Celebrant's chill waters that warm day had brought them to an amiable, if slightly awkward silence. When they met, the walked together, usually without speaking. Each still longed for the company of the other, but neither knew what was left to say. The letter marked the first real communication that had passed between them in a dozen decades. He could not deny her.

_But what of this freckle faced, straw haired fool who looks on Aragorn with such utter adoration, such wide-eyed wonder?_—thought the elf. Legolas was pleased, if not surprised, to see that the man also had the look of young, foolish, mortal love about when his eyes found Éowyn in stolen moments when he thought no one watched him. But the elf missed nothing.

_In the depths of Khazad-dǔm, on the Deeping wall, the perils were clear. But now?_ Legolas saw clearly that Aragorn, his best friend and his worst enemy, was now in much greater and more subtle danger. And again, it would be so easy to let him fall. _I don't suppose a roll in the hay with this little mare could possibly constitute harm_—thought the elf. _Besides. If he is human enough to forsake all he has in Arwen…if he is too mortal to appreciate the awesome gift he has been granted, it would serve him right to lose it._ In the end, Legolas decided that stupidity did not fall within the scope of his promise to Arwen. He watched, smiling coldly to himself, as Aragorn gazed longingly at the strong young woman who would come so close to Legolas's hope in the coming months.

The fire burned low in the pit at the center of Meduseld's great hall. It was late. All the men had found their beds at last; all except Aragon who slept on a pallet of furs by the guttering fire.

All tolled, they had drained fourteen kegs of ale and made a valiant effort to finish three more besides. For tonight, they drank not only for themselves. Tonight, the Rohirrim also drank for thief fallen fellows. Éowyn suspected that, come morning, Aragorn, Éomer, certainly Gimli, and the rest would wish they'd drunk only enough for themselves and found some other way to honor the victorious dead.

_They will all be nursing their aching heads tomorrow_—thought the woman with a sort of weary amusement as she sat watching Aragorn sleep by the light of the low, tenuous flames in the grate. She too had drunk herself a bit foolish. Unlike the rest, however, she meant not to go to bed until she had sobered a bit. Nor could she sleep before she finished weaving the web in which she meant to catch a king.

Éowyn drew the small leather pouch from her pocket. She had carried it with her for several weeks now, waiting merely for the opportunity that had, this night, at last, presented itself. A few dry sticks and leaves on the hearth served to rekindle the bed of smoldering embers. With her light shawl, she fanned the smoky fire back to life. Her hands moved feverishly as she opened the bag. Only for a moment did she hesitate before emptying the contents into the fire. Immediately, the flames flared and crackled, spitting the occasional spark clear of the pit.

"Blood of my blood…," she began to chant. As she spoke her oddly cadenced verse, Éowyn watched the wisps of smoke that rose lazily from the little fire begin to take form. "…Curl to ash and cloy his sense…" Again, a face headed the column. "…In crimson mirror bides thy love…" This time, though it was not Arwen's elven beauty, but Éowyn's strong features that wafted nose to nose with Aragorn. "…Bind us together to make one, the twain…" The man yawned. "…And in my heart, and in my flesh…" Air was not all he breathed in. "…His truest love be found." Aragorn snored once and then rolled onto his side, his back to the fire. He did not wake.

Théoden's niece wrapped her shawl about her once more against the cool March night. She sat and watched Aragorn sleep for a while longer, wondering what he dreamed. _Does he dream of me? If not?_ The cold teeth of doubt bit into her thoughts for the first time. _If not, what then? I could not bear to be saddled with a farmer. No more than a brood mare would I be to such a man…_

"Good evening," greeted a soft voice from the darkness beyond the feeble, flickering circle of light cast by the again-waning fire. Éowyn gasped with surprise, her head jerking around in effort to find the speaker. She saw no one. Standing, her balance still not quite sure, she turned to face the darkness fully, putting the fire behind her. "Walk with me?" asked the voice gently.

Legolas had had few dealings with men and even fewer with their women, but always he had found that they responded favorably to elvish voices. Always he had been able to gain the trust of men and the favor of women with is fair voice, but this one was cautious.

"Show yourself," she commanded. The dark elf stepped closer. Peering into the darkness, Éowyn was just able to make him out.

"Come. Walk with me," he said again. She did not move. "I have no wish to harm you, Éowyn," said the elf earnestly. Uneasy as he made her, she followed.

Outside, the night sky was clear, a perfect vault of blackest silk, pricked by a thousand points of perfect white light. There was no moon. Legolas watched the stars. She wondered what he divined from them.

"Thank you for your help," said the fair lady, sure he had watched her work her magic.

"You are most graciously welcome," he replied, inclining his head to her, but not taking his eyes off the sky overhead. After a moment, she spoke again.

"Why did you help me?" she asked, her brows knitting slightly as she observed his distinctive profile. As she awaited his answer, his height struck her. He was nearly a head taller than anyone else she'd ever met. She wondered if all elves were so tall.

"Yours are a noble people, Éowyn," said the elf at last, his velvet intonation almost a whisper, almost a purr.

"Thank you, master elf."

"My name is Legolas. You are welcome to use it." The elf prince looked to her, at last. A question had burned inside her since first she met Aragorn, since she learned of his quest, and of his betrothal to the elf. She met his ashen eyes. They were startlingly bright, even in the faint starlight. Before she knew what she was doing or had any hope of stopping it, the words began to tumble out of her.

"Why would Aragorn choose one of your kind before one of his own?" She expected the elf to be shocked, even offended by the bluntness of her question. She was mortified at having revealed so much to a near perfect stranger. He was sure to know what she really asked. And as if he had read her mind, he answered.

"Is that truly what you wish to know? Or is it that you wonder why he did not choose you? Surely, you must realize what an apparent match you are," he finished softly. Éowyn stood staring silently at him. Seemingly without effort, Legolas had struck upon the very thing that had gnawed at her since she had discovered that Aragorn meant to claim the long vacant throne of Gondor. After all, until these dark, mistrustful days, Gondor and Rohan had ever served one another as friends and allies. A marriage between the king of Gondor and a daughter of Théoden's house could rebuild their broken union. Rohan had been strong and would be strong again. What allies would the elves make? For decades, even centuries, the elves had been steadily departing the shores of Middle Earth in their white ships. There were but a handful now, and those there were stayed in their forests and kept out of the affairs of men.

"If that were what I wished to know, could you answer me?"

"Because he is a fool, Éowyn. He weds himself to the past when he should court the future. He has been accorded a rare political opportunity. You and I, we must help him to see it," said Legolas, pulling his face into a look of exaggerated sincerity. Dearly, he hoped that she would accept his half-truths. The woman eyed him, suspicious once more.

"What cares an elf for the politics of men, Legolas?" she asked incredulously. It appeared that it was his turn to be skewered with a sharp perception. She watched intently as he shifted his weight uncomfortably and looked skyward once more. "Perhaps there is something between you and Aragorn's woman, hm?" He did not answer her for a time.

"Aye, perhaps there is," he said as though such a thing might never have occurred to him had she not mentioned it. "And I see no reason why we cannot, both of us, have what we want…"

AN: It's been so long…yet again. And I suspect it will be a long while until the next one. But I'll get it done. How's that for a variable interval schedule? Thanks so much all of you for sticking with me. DR


	20. Reckoning

(Reckoning)

From outside in the drafty corridor, Éowyn could only hear muffled voices within the king's chamber. She had just finished closing the last silver clasp on her gown when the door opened. A tall figure emerged. Arwen's dove grey eyes fell on the proud face of her wronger. The elf's cold gaze did nothing to humble the audacious fire that burned boldly behind the eyes of Faramir's new wife. Holding her regal head high, Éowyn's silence dared the other woman to speak.

"Your deceit proves nothing more than your unworthiness," whispered the Evenstar icily as she closed the door behind her.

"That may be. But you, who abandon Elessar's love so easily, are no worthier than I," answered the fairer woman contemptuously. She had no time to anticipate, no time to guard herself before Arwen's hand contacted her cheek with a sharp slap that whipped the woman's head to the side. The sound echoed down the dank hall. Reflexively, Éowyn's hand covered her stinging face. She glared furiously up at the elf, but the cold fury that sparkled in Arwen's eyes told her that she would do better not to retaliate.

"You presume too much. You were never meant for Aragorn," spat the elf. "Faramir is a good man, a wise man. It was your valor that earned you a place beside such a man. But your selfish, slinking cowardice has betrayed his love and disgraced yourself," a look of revulsion curled her porcelain features as she spoke.

"I am no coward," Éowyn's voice was low and threatening. Valor and cowardice were warriors' words. _What can this elf-woman know of courage_—she thought savagely—_she who has never seen a battlefield, never looked death in the face?_

Arwen drew herself up aggressively. Her eyes flashed.

"Faramir may never learn what you have done here tonight. He may never discover what you are. But I know. Aragorn knows. And so do you," she finished stonily. Then, without a further word, Arwen turned and disappeared into the darkness.

Clouds in luminous hues of gold, orange and pink rolled across the brilliant blue evening sky above the western horizon. Deep, ebon night had already claimed the east. There, a few stars shone brightly between the wisps of purple cloud that streaked the heavens.

Minas Tirith's walls, once gleaming and pristine, now stood pitted and battle scarred, the white stone dulled by the filth of the unholy horde that had penetrated the defenses and overrun the lower levels. Still, in the failing twilight, the White City stood out like some ghostly apparition against the craggy mountains from which the descendants of Numenor had hewn it so many ages ago.

Arwen felt empty as she galloped alone along Anduin's western bank. She had expected the bitterness of Aragorn's betrayal to grow and fester with each passing moment that she looked on the city of Kings. But she felt nothing.

She had even managed, at last, to put from her mind the vision of Estel; breathless, his body taut with pleasure. Finally, the jarring stride of her mount had beaten from her the memory of his careworn face, transformed again to carefree youth by the joy he had found in the horsewitch's arms. Another thought haunted her, though…

Arwen looked over at the man who lay beside her on the heath of Cerin Amroth. Aragorn watched the stars through the opening in the mallorn canopy, his dark head pillowed on his laced fingers. The warm summer night was redolent with the delicate scent of the tiny silver and golden flowers that blanketed the ground on which they lay; the ground on which they had, this day, pledged themselves to one another.

As she studied the man's face, this mortal with whom she would cast her lot, Arwen's thoughts turned, unbidden, to the man and the child she had given up for this day, this moment. She wondered what Legolas was doing now. She wondered if, like her, he imagined every day what their daughter, their secret child must look like. But more than anything else, Arwen wondered if Thurinhên dwelling in the West would ever be able to forgive her.

The elf turned her gaze skyward again. Eärendil sailed aloft through the blackness, bearing on his brow the Silmaril that Beren had cut from Morgoth's iron crown for the love of Lúthien Tinúviel. A little sadly, she watched the beautiful star overhead whose story was joined so closely with her own. Like her ancestor, Arwen had bound her heart with that of a mortal man. And like Beren, to prove his worth, Aragorn had been set a daunting task.

The uncertainty of the future weighed on the Evenstar even more heavily as she contemplated the finality of her past decisions. She knew she could never go back. For her, destiny's path had been too long, too painful, and too costly to give up now.

Aragorn's callused hand searched for hers. A contented smile softened the ranger's rugged features as he felt her long, slender fingers close around his.

When first he had come upon her, walking in a birch grove near Imladris, she had seemed little more than a dream. Surely, nothing as beautiful as she could be real. She was impossibly radiant, her eyes impossibly soulful. Tinúviel, he had called her. Her answering laugh had been strangely sorrowful.

After that meeting, Arathorn's son had been able to think of little else but her forbidden beauty. Arwen was not for him. Elrond had declared it. It was a strange thing indeed to court the only daughter of his second father, but Aragorn was drawn irresistibly to her.

Even now, as he lay on the forest floor in this golden country of Lothlorien, he could scarcely believe that hers was the body lying next to him. Gratitude welled up within his broad chest. For him, she would give up her place in Aman. To stay with him in this darkening, hateful land, she would be eternally sundered from her kin. Arwen's sacrifice, her love filled him with a sense of confidence and determination. Her love endowed him with the will to seize his destiny. Only for her could he find the strength to put right Isildur's folly, honor his mighty lineage, and claim his crown and the long-vacant throne of Gondor.

Then, suddenly, he was aware of her light hand resting low on his belly as she turned on her side to face him. Arwen's touch, always calming, reassuring, had an entirely unexpected effect this night. Deftly, she untucked his shirt and slid her cool hand beneath it. Though her skin was cool against his warm flesh, the sensation her palm produced in him was not at all unlike burning. Deep, tingling heat seemed to radiate through his body as though she had lit a fire somewhere deep inside him.

"Tell me what is in your head, Estel," she commanded gently. Her fingers traced absently along the line of dark hair that bisected his firm abdomen. The feeling was quite agreeable, if somewhat distracting. Aragorn took a moment to collect his thoughts and enjoy her skillful caresses. At last, he answered.

"I am thinking of all that you mean to me. I am grateful to you, Arwen, more than I can say," his voice was quiet and thoughtful. He paused for a long moment. When he continued, he spoke at a whisper, barely audible above the sounds of singing insects and the murmuring of the trees. "In my dreams, I have seen my son…our son," Arwen's hand stopped, but he went on, "His nose and the shape of his face are mine…but he has your mouth. And he has your eyes."

"I have seen him too. In the Mirror," a warm smile lit her face as she whispered the words. The elf could never forget the first time she had gazed into that stone basin and seen the boy's face. Since then, she'd looked into the Mirror often. Sometimes Eldarion appeared to her as a child, sometimes as a man; uncannily like his father. Three daughters, all fair and smiling, she had also seen. Though none could replace Thurinhên, Arwen took some comfort in knowing that she might someday bear more children. Aragorn's children.

She would learn to love the man, she knew. Already, she could feel it beginning. But it would take time.

Arwen had not thought she could love Legolas more than she had when she left for Lorien to birth their child in secret. Yet, somehow, with each passing day that she felt the life inside her grow stronger, so did the love she felt for the elf who had put it there.

As she looked on the man beside her, his features so rough in comparison with those of the black-haired prince, the vastness of that old love seemed to eclipse the meager beginnings of affection she felt for Aragorn. Then, she thought again of the children in the Mirror; those that this man, this King of Men would give her. And she knew that each life that they brought into the world would lessen her regret.

Curiosity knit his brow as he watched her misty eyes. Clearly, she was elsewhere. Aragorn wondered where.

"Arwen?" Immediately, her distant gaze came back into focus. Her smile returned, warm and serene. "Where were you just now?" asked the ranger, returning her smile. In answer, she laid her arm across his chest and pulled herself closer so that her head rested on his shoulder.

"Hold me," she whispered. Her breath, sultry on his neck, sent a shiver down his spine. Gently, he enfolded her in his arms and held her close. He felt her breathing, slow and steady. Rarely before had Aragorn felt so content as he did now, watching the stars, lying beside the woman who would be his queen and mother to his children.

Arwen closed her eyes, satisfied, for the moment, just to lie quiet beside him. Minutes passed in stillness and in silence as they lay there together. Slowly, though, the elf felt her body beginning to respond to his presence. It had been so long, ages it seemed, since she had known the joy of union with a man.

Willfully, and with difficulty, she drove Legolas from her mind. This night, she would dedicate herself to a new love. Tonight, in the heat of her joining with Aragorn, she would burn from herself all traces of her bond to Legolas Thranduillion. She would use the fire rising in her blood to cleanse and purify her spirit in preparation for her new life with her new mate.

The elf breathed him in. He smelled of the earth, and growing things, worn leather, and sweat. She felt his shape next to her. He was so much larger, so much broader and bulkier than any elf. Sudden moisture dampened her scant undergarments at the thought of his naked skin on hers, his weight comfortably atop her as he rocked his hips, moving smoothly in and out of her welcoming flesh. Arwen felt her sex growing wet and ready as she whispered huskily,

"I am yours, Estel. Take me." His black eyes widened. This time, it was not her breath, but her words that sent a tingling tremor to the base of his spine.

Arwen allowed only the barest moment between the instant when he turned his obsidian gaze on her ethereally beautiful face and the instant he felt her full, soft lips against his; but in that moment, he was scorched by the desperate desire he saw burning in her eyes. Hungrily, she kissed him. A small smile crinkled the corners of her lightly shut eyes as his mustache tickled her mouth. She drew him deeper into the kiss, drinking his lips as though she were parched, devouring his tongue as though she were starved.

Arwen gripped the wide leather belt at his waist firmly. With surprising strength, the elf torqued his hips toward her so that they faced each other completely. A soft moan escaped her as she felt the bulge that strained his breeches pressing against her pubis. Eagerly, she rolled her pelvis up to meet him. Her hands moved feverishly over his body, clutching at his waist, the small of his back, his buttocks, anything she could use to pull him tighter against her.

_I cannot permit this_. It was the only coherent thought the ranger could muster. Knowing that, in a moment, it would be too late, Aragorn tore himself from her embrace, gasping. It took every scrap self-discipline he possessed to do it.

"Arwen…I...we can't," he panted as he tried to will down the dull, demanding ache in his loins. Unable to bear the look of shock and disappointment on her face, he looked to the dazzling green stone that rested precariously in the cleft of her full bosom. Her expectant gaze weighed on him. He owed her an explanation, he knew, but he could not make the words come. At last, after several more deep breaths, "I would not dishonor you so," he said. His voice was a little unsteady as he spoke. The ranger stared down at his trembling hands.

"It is no dishonor to celebrate our love," she responded quickly, an easy laugh in her voice, her smile returning. Aragorn nodded his head slowly. His eyes moved up her body, lingering on the creamy skin that showed above her décolleté bodice before finally meeting her argent gaze.

"You are right, beloved, it is none. But I am not yet worthy of the precious gift you offer me. No man can be worthy. Only when I have completed my task and redeemed the folly of my ancestor, only when I am King will I have earned such a prize," he spoke with perfect sincerity, as he caressed the rosy flush of her cheek with the side of his thumb. Aragorn watched sadly as the smile faded from her face.

"I have no care for titles. It makes no difference to me whether you wear Gondor's mithril crown or a ranger's tattered garb. What you are, what I love, is inside you. Here," she pressed her palm to his chest. His heartbeat was strong and a little quick beneath her touch. "You are no more or less worthy this night than you will be when the eastern Shadow is vanquished and the White Tree in the Citadel flourishes once more," she finished softly. The sable beard that covered his jaw line and chin was coarse beneath her fingers as she stroked his face. Her pale eyes implored him even before she spoke, "Please, Estel…make love to me tonight."

Breathless, Aragorn watched as her nimble fingers worked open the first few fastenings of her gown. Inch by inch, she revealed a wide swath of flawless, lily-white skin. He stared, transfixed by the elegant curves of her bare breasts and abdomen. The very core of him thrummed with anticipation as he watched her long hands work to loosen the lazuline sash knotted about her hips. Yet still, he knew he must allow himself to succumb neither to her desire nor to his own. Slowly, reluctantly, Aragorn extended a tremulous hand.

"We must not, Arwen," said the man as commandingly as he could. Gently, he clothed her ivory bosom, ignoring the stab of frustration that needled his resolve as the heel of his hand brushed one of the small pink nipples that stood out firm from her silken skin. "It may be no matter to you, but it is to me. And to your father…," he trailed off, momentarily silenced by the algor that frosted Arwen's eyes at the mention of Elrond. Continuing undeterred by her frigid glare, he spoke with a conciliatory note in his voice, "He has consented to our betrothal only on condition tha…."

"I know his terms," she interrupted. "But I do not think it is my father that you fear," she finished coldly. The elf stared at him, unblinking, her features impassive. White knuckles told how tightly she clinched the gossamer material of her gown closed at her breast. Long uncomfortable moments passed. Gradually, her high brow creased with impatient incredulity.

"I do not understand you, Estel. I can feel how you want me. The glaze of your eyes tells me so. Your quick breath, your pattering heart, every part of your body attests your desire. Your very scent is grown musky and sharp with sex, yet you resist. Why? We are no strangers. Have we not, this day, pledged our hearts, nay, our very souls to one another?"

Aragorn nodded mutely in response, his attention drawn to the ring that adorned her hand. Twin serpents' carefully crafted mithril bodies twined to form the band of Barahir's ring, the token of their troth. The snakes' emerald eyes gleamed in the scant starlight, one protecting, the other devouring a diadem of golden flowers. He continued to avoid her gaze, keeping his eyes fixed on the intricately carved scales and sublimely cut stones. Ignoring his obvious discomfort, she went on.

"Then why do you still refuse? How can this feeble flesh measure against that vow? Or is it that your body desires me when your heart does not?" Her eyes were softer, sadder when she had finished speaking. Even her fierce grip had loosened. Speaking the words seemed to hasten the dawning realization of his rejection, to set the reality of it.

Though the elf could not take her eyes from him, the man could endure her gaze no longer. He returned his observation to the heavens. After a while, he answered.

"I was not born to your ways, Arwen. Though I was raised in your father's house, I am not of your kind. Sometimes, in some things, we shall simply have to learn to accept disagreement." Aragorn was surprised to hear the terse edge in his voice. Slowly, heavily he exhaled, silently chastising himself for his sudden and unaccountable ill temper. _She cannot know my mind if I do not speak it_, thought the man. "Never have I lain with a woman, Arwen," he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. He met her eyes once more. All the anger was gone from her expression, replaced with unconcealed astonishment.

"Never?"

"Never," he shook his head. "So, yes, I desire you. Of course I desire you. How could I not?" he said, rumbling the question in his deep baritone. A faint blush rose again in her high cheeks. Her eyes softened with the sparest hint of a smile. "But more, I love you. More than I had ever thought possible.

Already, you have waited for me a hundred times the span of our life together, I know. For me, you have given up what many of my kind covet above all else. Ever will you be disunited from your kind, and your kin. None but a king can be worthy of such a sacrifice. It is your father's wish that we not be wed before I have proved my mettle beyond doubt."

It was Arwen's turn to lower her gaze as she wondered—_What _would_ ada say?_ Instantly, she knew the answer. _He would tell me I am a fool for not sailing with Legolas to Valinor long ago_—she thought with a bitter, inward laugh

"…and it is my wish, too," said the ranger after a pause. "What if I should fail my quest, Arwen? What if I should be killed and leave my destiny unfulfilled? If we made love tonight, and that happened, you would be stranded, caught here, unable to sail to the West, waiting alone for death to come to you. I'll not have that," he paused, seemingly finished, but then he began again, softly, "But you must never think that I do not desire you." They lay together then, in silence for a time.

"I love you," said the elf. Her voice was warm, but she was cold inside, the fire of her unfulfilled lust snuffed at last. Words could be powerful things, Arwen knew. She knew also that their power came from the conviction of the one who spoke them. But she hoped that, in some small part, simply speaking them would help to stir in her the feeling they expressed.

"And I love you," Aragorn answered, every bit as sincere, every bit as sure as she was not.

_In time_, she thought, _it will come in time_.

Unseen, unheard, Legolas watched the couple. Silently, he listened to their whispered words. The elf wished desperately that he could tear his eyes away from them, or else bound from his hiding place and demand his right as husband to Arwen and father to their child. He wished he could at least leave the uncomfortable cover of the thicket at the edge of the clearing and go home; home to his empty bed in Lorien; home to the cold bed that awaited him in Eryn Lasgalen. Next to lurking in the dark periphery of the clearing, anywhere else would be preferable. So sore was he in body from crouching in his thorny bower, so numb in soul from witnessing the irrevocable altering of his life taking place only feet away that Legolas felt impotent to do anything but linger. Still. Silent. Insensate, he sat…

The memory plagued him as he galloped out from the makeshift gates of Minas Tirith. In the fading light, Thranduil's son could just make out the ghostly figure of a horse and rider in the distance. The speed and light grace with which it moved told him it could only be one of elvenkind. It could only be Arwen.

She rode swiftly northward from the battered walls of Osgiliath along Anduin's western bank, away from the war-ravaged expanse of the Pelennor Fields. Legolas wheeled his steed sharply toward her. He would meet her before the sky was fully dark. It was with considerable apprehension that the black-haired prince realized he had only a few minutes left to him before he must tell her the truth he had begun to tell that morning in Minas Tirith. After that, she would surely be lost to him forever. His already-heavy heart sank a little further as he watched her slow and alter her course, the sooner to meet him.

Arwen felt strangely disconnected from herself as she let her horse's reins go slack, allowing the great beast to choose its own path. Nimbly, the animal's sure hooves found the clearest route through the grim debris of crumpled steel, torn leather, splintered wood, and the occasional barely identifiable hunk of rotting meat.

She watched Legolas stand in his stirrups as she neared him. He hailed her solemnly. Without returning his greeting, Arwen turned north once more. Her homelands of Rivendell and Lorien called to her spirit and she was not ready to speak to him yet.

Barely above the horizon, the moon had already begun the sluggish climb towards its zenith. In the thick, summer air still hung the sulphurous stink of ash and fume that had issued violently from the now sunken crater of Orodruin. And through the volcanic smog, the corpulent moon glowed like an ember; its luminance red and strange.

For the better part of two hours, Legolas followed her silently. They traced the course of the Great River as it rushed away southward to the sea. It seemed somehow appropriate to Arwen that she should be riding against Anduin's current; for it was in protest against the mighty currents of time and the irresistible tide of destiny that she flew. _Perhaps if I follow these timeless waters away from this place and this time, I will find myself somewhere, somewhen else._

Arwen glanced over her shoulder at Legolas who followed a few strides behind her. For an instant, their eyes met, but she looked away quickly. Again, she looked on the turbulent surface the river. _Perhaps if I trace Anduin to its headwaters, if I travel far enough upstream, I will find myself beside that brook in the Greenwood where I first saw him. And on that day, I will throw that loathsome jewel into the somnolent black waters of the Enchanted River._

A stand of trees came into view in the distance. Still they remained silent as Arwen spurred her mount toward the distant foliage. The already lathered horses snorted in protest of their increased pace. The late moon was now high overhead.

At the edge of the willow grove, both elves dismounted. Still, neither spoke. Their grateful steeds wandered toward the river to drink and graze as they pleased. Beneath the low shower of canopy, the silver moonlight filtered to the ground in a delicate lacework of light and shadow. The ancient trees whispered to them as they wandered in silence toward the heart of the wood, gently parting the willow veils that hung in their path. Still, Legolas kept a few paces behind her. He did not relish the words he knew must soon pass between them. But the sadness that weighed on her visibly troubled his conscience and he knew that it necessitated an explanation.

Finally she stopped. Turning to face him at last, Legolas saw sorrow writ plainly in her eyes. When she spoke, though, her voice rang with a rash and desperate hope that he had not expected to hear.

"You asked me once to sail West with you. If you desire it still, I will," she said. Legolas stared, dumbfounded. Of all the things he had imagined she might say, this was not among them. He had been prepared for any furious tirade. But the words she had spoken instead tore at his heart as no verbal assault could have done. Before he could muster any reply, she spoke again. "It is not too late for us to be a family, Legolas." She watched him expectantly. Her words stung him, but they also presented an unlooked for opportunity. Legolas had expected Éowyn to inform on him at once when her ruse was spoiled. Because she had not, all it would take for him to reclaim Arwen was a simple omission. The smallest of lies and she could be his again and forever. A heavy sigh escaped him before he answered.

"It is, beloved," he said quietly, hating himself for having even considered uttering such an untruth. "Though I could wish for nothing more, I cannot allow it." Her face fell. She seemed to deflate as she let out the breath she'd been holding.

"Can you never forgive me?" she asked, hurt flattening her expression, further dimming the hopeful light in her eyes. His answer was a hollow laugh.

"Nothing you have done needs forgiving. Much as your choices have pained me, I know they must have done you more so. I love you, Arwen. I loved you before I knew your name. And yet I have done a thing so unworthy of you that I am ashamed even to face you now." Incredulity creased her already burdened brow. Legolas continued, "If anyone should beg clemency this night, it is I."

"Why should you? You have done me no harm. It was Aragorn in whom I placed all my hope and all my trust. It was he who betrayed my love at the first opportunity," she all but whispered, hanging her head despondently. "All I had in you, I forsook for him," she said as she sat heavily on the carpet of dead leaves and canes. She rested her chin on her hands and her elbows on her knees. Legolas seated himself before her. Staring blankly past her companion, she wondered aloud, "What king ever needed such baiting to claim his crown?"

"He loves you, Arwen." Her gaze came back into focus on him as he said this. "In the time we have known each other, he has proven that to me. I have loved and hated and envied Aragorn for the love he bears you. It is vibrant as only mortal love can be. He would never have turned his back on you…as I did," the prince paused, watching the silent objection that crossed her face. He took a deep breath and continued. "His love is innocent as only mortal love can be. It is no fault of Aragorn's that he was deceived…as I never could have been."

A quick succession of emotions manifested in her expression; first, disbelief, then embarrassment that dissolved finally into suspicion.

"How can you…?" she trailed off.

"I am responsible, Arwen." He waited, watching as he dull suspicion in her eyes was slowly honed to razor sharp conviction. Still, she gave him one final opportunity to explain himself.

"What are you saying?"

"I helped her." Legolas stopped. He lowered his eyes, unable to withstand the tide of her disappointment. It flooded over him like a drowning eagre. When he spoke again, it was with the broken voice of one weeping. "I helped Éowyn to bind his eyes. She wanted him and I wanted you, so I helped her. This morning, I tried to warn you…," he croaked, but Arwen heard him no more. She cast no backward glance as she strode toward the edge of the wood, flinging aside the lacy willow curtains as she went. Even as she fled from his confession, Arwen heard his light steps following. Imploring, apologetic fingers brushed her hand, but she snatched it away and quickened her pace. The fury in her gaze scorched him when he grabbed her arm roughly the second time. The archer expected more resistance, but she did not struggle against his hold long. She halted and regarded him stonily. When she spoke, it was with cold anger.

"Release me," was all she said. Legolas did as he was asked, expecting her to run from him again, but she did not. Nor did she speak. Now, with her full attention, he continued.

"Without my help, she never could have swayed him from his devotion to you. I would have you know the truth of it from my own lips," said the prince. Arwen shied only a little when he brushed her wan cheek with his fingertips. "But I would not have you look so sad," he whispered.

"How else should I look, then?" she snapped. "Pray you? Should I look glad? Glad that Aragorn is a fool? Happy that you are false?" Legolas had no answer. Mercilessly, she continued. "Long ago, I chose you, Legolas. That first night when we made love together in one of your Greenwood's mighty elms; when your father found us naked and spent in our perch; when you carried me to my bed and fell asleep in my arms I hoped—foolishly—that I might never pass another day…another night without you. When we were sundered and I sojourned in Lothlorien, great with your child and I learned that it was my fate to mate myself to a man, I asked Eru to spare me seeing your face again. But you came, full of wounded pride and empty hope. Now, I find that your selfish desire has betrayed what little chance I had of learning to love afresh with Aragorn. And still, I would sail West with you. Is that not foolish?" she asked with a sorrowful laugh, tears welling in her eyes. "Tell me, Legolas, what should I do? How should I choose?" He sighed and smiled stiffly.

"When I delivered that lock of his hair into her hand I sought to complicate your decision, but my duplicity has served only to simplify it. You should marry with Aragorn. He did not injure you willfully…as I did." This time, when the taller elf took her hands gently in his, she did not pull away. Her fingers were cool. "I was little more than a child when I fell in love with you. My childish love has brought you as much pain as joy and I am sorry for it. But I do love you, Arwen. And I always will."

"And I, you. Nothing can change that," she answered with tears. Weeping, they embraced, and together, shed their tears for the life they knew they could never have. "We elves were not made for this," said the Evenstar. "What you and I had was precious. Why must we regret it for all time?" Legolas drew back, peering into her eyes.

"We are all of us pierced with destiny's arrow, Arwen," said the prince. "Even when we heal, we are left with the scar. But we will mend, you and I." He paused, giving her a rueful smile. "Come. I will escort you back to the city. Aragorn will want to know you're safe," he said, taking her hand and leading her through the thinning trees of the grove. As they walked, he whistled once. Their mounts would answer his summons in their own time.

Legolas looked toward Minas Tirith with some trepidation. What he felt more than anything else, though, was relief that the truth was told at last. He was lost so deeply in his own thoughts that he barely noticed how Arwen had sidled closer to him. Her arm was around his waist before her words roused him from his reverie.

"Hold me, Legolas," she said quietly, leaning her head against his shoulder. He complied, wrapping his long arm around her shoulders.

"How I have missed you," said he. Though, he spoke softly, his voice sounded loud in the still.

Shortly, the low sound of hoofbeats came to them. The two horses emerged from the woods a few minutes later. The couple, so long sundered, was reluctant to part. They watched the stars awhile, enjoying this, their last night together.

"Will you promise me something, Legolas?" she whispered.

"Anything."

"When you go to the West, will you find Thurinhên and tell her my story? Our story."

"Of course," he smiled. But then, uncertainty creased his brow. "How will I know her?" he asked. To his surprise, Arwen laughed.

"You will know her. She will have my eyes set in your face and hair like the red maple in autumn. I think she will not be inconspicuous." Legolas nodded.

Aragorn did not sup at Osgiliath that evening. He had stomach for neither food nor company, and he did not trust himself to keep a civil tongue if Éowyn decided to bait him. Nor did he pursue Arwen immediately. He did not know what he would say when he found her. What could he say?

Carefully, he walked the crumbling battlements. New masonry stood out against the ancient stone. Even from his high vantage point, he could see no sign of his betrothed. The king resigned himself to watching the sunset instead.

"Any aid I can offer will be yours, Aragorn," said Faramir, his soft voice catching the other man off his guard.

"Thank you, my friend, but I fear it is my task alone."

"As you wish." The steward fell silent but did not leave. After a time, he spoke again. "Do not think badly of Éowyn, my lord." Aragorn rounded on the younger man, his eyes ablaze. "Pity her, but do not grudge her. She will trouble you no more." The king answered with a mirthless laugh.

"I wish that she had dealt as honestly with me."

"As do I," said the Prince of Ithilien earnestly. He lingered only a moment longer. Then, silently as he had come, Faramir departed.

As night fell and the moon rose, Aragorn rode alone from the ancient capital. Gondor's daunting expanse stretched out before him. _How will I find her_, he wondered. Layer upon layer of tracks pocked the ground.

It took some several minutes, but finally he spotted fresh tracks. They were shallow as only those of an elf-bred horse bearing an elven rider could be. As he followed her trail northward along the river, he was surprised when a second set of hoofprints joined her path. Wherever she was, she was not alone. The king spurred his mount hard.

He had ridden for perhaps half an hour when he saw a silver-white speck on the horizon. Arwen's steady gait and straight path told Aragorn that she was not fleeing danger, and after a moment, he was able to pick out her companion. Relieved, the king let his lathered and panting mount slow to a more tolerable pace.

In the distance, the elves saw Aragorn riding toward them. Legolas watched the approaching figure with apprehension. Sighting the man strengthened Arwen's resolve. She was strangely heartened and reassured to see that he had come for her. She knew that, in many ways, Éowyn would have been a wiser choice to wive Gondor's king. The fact that Aragorn wanted her despite the political impracticality of that choice touched her. Still she did not know how she would explain herself.

He was close now and the elves slowed to meet him. It was Aragorn who spoke first.

"Legolas. Thank you for keeping her safe. When I saw that she did not travel alone, I feared the worst," he said with genuine relief in his voice and on his face. He lowered his dark eyes when next he spoke, this time to Arwen.

"Will you ride behind and talk with me, Arwen?" Legolas bowed his head and rode off toward Minas Tirith, grateful for an excuse to leave Aragorn's presence. Arwen did not fail to note the look of mingled dread and relief on his fair face as he passed.

"Legolas," she called. The other elf halted and turned. "We will speak some more before the morning." The prince nodded mutely before resuming his course to the city.

Arwen and Aragorn were alone. They walked their horses but did not speak for a time. It was Aragorn who broke the silence.

"Do you doubt that I love you, Arwen?"

"You are here." She answered evenly, watching her path rather than her partner.

"I am." The horses plodded a few more strides. "I did not expect to find you so easily."

"You expected to find me?" she asked, the barest hint of incredulity coloring her words. Silence. She fixed him in her mourning dove gaze, "I apologize."

"Why did I? Find you," he asked, meeting it. Arwen did not answer. "I did expect to find you. I would have followed you to the ends of the earth. Beyond. But I did not expect you to come back."

"Nor did I," her carefully neutral visage lightened to wry smile.

"I was a fool, Arwen. I do not offer any other excuse. She tempted me as herself before she appeared in your guise. I could resist her, but not you."

"Think no more of it. It is forgiven."

"I am not sure you should absolve me so lightly," his voice barely audible above the warm breeze that blew through his silvering hair.

"I do not do it lightly. Your actions, however guiltless, are not without consequence. You asked me at Osgiliath if my past could forgive you," she looked out across the plain before them. Already, she could see lights glimmering atop the Tower of Ecthelion. She looked to Aragorn once more. "It can." Arwen watched curiosity flit briefly over the man's features. "I had another life, once, Estel. Does that surprise you?" she asked in response to the question on his face. Without awaiting his answer, she continued. "I loved that life. But now? Now it is gone. For you, I left that life behind," she told him solemnly.

"Why?" he asked. Arwen shook her head in reply.

"It was not my choice to love you. It was my destiny. Do you doubt my love?"

"You are here."

"I am. And I will stand at your side two days hence beneath the Midsummer moon. We will begin afresh, together. It shall be as if what passed before had never passed. Agreed?" Aragorn nodded his assent. After a time, he spoke again.

"It is a pity we never troubled to know each other better," said the king. "Will you tell me about your other life?"

"No," she answered simply. His questions were almost asked, his protests almost made before he remembered Gandalf's words—_Arwen has many secrets. They are hers to share or keep as she will…and you will drive her away if you do not let her keep the ones she will._ Aragorn was silent. They said nothing else for the remainder of the journey back to Minas Tirith.


End file.
